Catherine Rampell: What, Exactly, is Trumponomics?

Chris Riback's Conversations

The latest economic numbers are out, and by the time you hear this podcast, Donald Trump surely will have told us all why they are great, why tariffs work, and why this economy is the best ever.But you know better. Or at least Washington Post opinion columnist Catherine Rampell does. While we may have one or multiple months of strong GDP, the key question remains: Is that growth sustainable? And as she wrote, “Right now, under Trump’s policies, the answer looks like a big fat no.”So today my goal was to better understand Trumponomics, and whether bad economics might just be good politics.After all, we’re running up debt, collecting fewer taxes, destroying free trade, fighting with trade partners, implementing tariffs, and then bailing out farmers with $12 billion of handouts to pay for the results. As I seem to ask every week: What is going on?About Catherine Rampell: As you surely know, her columns focus on economics, public policy, politics and culture, with a special emphasis on data-driven journalism. Before the Post poached her, she previously wrote for the New York Times.

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