Trump Keeps Gambling With the Economy — And Getting Away With It

President Donald Trump has spent his second term turning risky economic gambles into a way of life.

He has implemented sweeping global tariffs that have dramatically increased the cost of doing business across the world. He has sharply decreased the number of people immigrating to the U.S. He has pushed for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates under any circumstance, even though inflation has not entirely cooled.

And now, he's launched an attack on Iran, a scenario that has long been the clearest and most direct threat to one of Trump’s favored political barometers: gas prices.

The U.S. now finds itself in another acute economic risk situation — an assault that Trump has said could last four weeks or more. The conflict has led to a jump in oil prices, though not quite to worst-case levels, and markets have been jittery about the prospect of more expensive energy and higher U.S. federal debt, stemming from the cost of the U.S.-Israel war with Iran.

Add it to the catalog of ways Trump is living dangerously — and, so far, mostly getting away with it.

In so many ways, that is the story of Trump’s economic stewardship up to this point. His disruptive policies have left some dents, including serious damage to his approval rating, but by the biggest readings of its health, the U.S. economy — measured by overall growth, the job market, the stock market, even inflation — largely keeps absorbing what he throws at it.

Of course, the extraordinary amount of business spending associated with the buildout of artificial intelligence has also been a significant factor keeping the economy plowing ahead at a solid pace.

But mostly, the U.S. economy is just a consumer-driven powerhouse that seems hard to crush.

“Some people have said, ‘Oh, he just kind of got lucky with the AI investment boom.’ I don’t think that’s wrong, but I think it’s overstated,” Jared Bernstein, who served as chief economist to former President Joe Biden, told me. “Business investment is, what, 12, 13 percent of GDP? He’s got an unemployment rate of 4.3 percent. He’s got rising real wages. That by itself helps move consumer spending forward.”

The president himself is part of the reason for the resilience: GOP tax cuts are expected to provide a huge power-up to economic expansion this year by boosting refunds for individuals and offering immediate deductions for businesses making certain investments. And the administration’s deregulatory efforts have repeatedly driven stocks to new highs, which has helped increase the wealth of households invested in the market.