My column for the San Francisco Chronicle on Trump, tariffs, and Wall Street...

An artificial dip concocted by an artificial dip...

It’s only 45 days into his second term and Trump is tearing down the economy

By Jack Ohman

March 11, 2025

President Donald Trump has always been obsessed with the stock market as an economic indicator, along with tariffs.

In July 2024, he posted this: “Dow Jones UP 742 based on the fact that the Market expects a TRUMP WIN in November! Nice compliment — Thank you!”

No one on Wall Street is complimenting Trump and his bipolar approach to tariffs and the stock market now.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has erased all of its post-election gains, and now Trump’s mantra today is, “You can’t really watch the stock market.”

Why would we want to, since he’s almost single-handedly screwed up the markets?

The Dow dropped 890 points on Monday. Since Trump raised his tiny right hand to take the oath of office, the Dow has fallen 2.5%.

In case you’re counting, and I know you are, the S&P 500 has dropped 5% over that period, while the Nasdaq has dropped 10%.

How about those so-called “Magnificent Seven” stocks? You know, the companies headed by Trumpie Triumvirate supplicants like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Jeff Cook?

More like MAGAnificent Seven, and imploding.

Nvidia? Down. Google? Down.

Oh, and Tesla, headed by DOGE supergenius Musk?

Down 13%. You run out of 13% drops really fast when angry consumers are picketing your dealerships and your Cybertrucks explode in flames.

Not to mention your SpaceX rockets that can’t seem to make it farther than a drive from San Francisco to Sacramento. By the way, Elon, Mars is 140 million miles away and fading fast. Ain’t gonna be able to colonize it at this burn rate.

Maybe boring ol’ former Vice President Kamala Harris looks a little better to them now, with her tedious stability and her ability to keep her mouth closed once in awhile?

Sorry, too late, protofascist kids. Now you have to live with your pathetic Faustian bargain.

Why is this happening so fast? Well, Trump’s verbal meanderings and policy fecklessness have ignited a sell-off entirely created by the president.

His silly obsession with tariffs against America’s two most reliable and stable trading partners, Canada and Mexico, along with his Sunday statement on Fox News (surprise) about the likelihood of a recession in 2025 lit up every hinky terrified investor everywhere.

“I hate to predict things like that (a recession),” Trump said. “There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big”.

Oh, yeah. So very big.

See also: very stupid.

An admirer of the late President William McKinley, Trump asserts 124 years after his preferred Alaskan mountain name died that “tariff” is his favorite word. After all, the heir to a Queens, N.Y., real estate fortune declared we’re in a new “Golden Age” at his inauguration.

Golden ages are great if you have all the gold.

Mark Twain called the period from the 1870s to the early 1900s the “Gilded Age,” you know, where robber barons rode high, had several major recessions (look up 1877, kids) and had no government oversight to speak of.

Sound familiar?

Trump neglects to mention his fixation on that halcyon era doesn’t include acknowledging that poor people were starving to death and/or losing fingers and limbs in their dangerous jobs. Maybe they were even children in factories.

But, hey, it was so very golden, if you were Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Mellon, Astor or any of all those other rich white guys.

“We were at our richest from 1870 to 1913. That’s when we were a tariff country. And then they went to an income tax concept,” Trump said recently. “It’s fine. It’s OK. But it would have been very much better.”

Well, no, it wouldn’t have been very much better. The progressive federal income tax is exponentially fairer than tariffs and doesn’t lead to trade wars.

Sometimes, those trade wars can also turn into hot wars. Check out Japan right before Pearl Harbor.

As this slide continues, and it will continue because Trump can’t shut up and admit tariffs are crazy, and not note that maybe threatening Canada with war might be destabilizing the markets.

What’s the official White House statement on all of this chaos?

“Since President Trump was elected, industry leaders have responded to President Trump’s America First economic agenda of tariffs, deregulation, and the unleashing of American energy with trillions in investment commitments that will create thousands of new jobs. … President Trump delivered historic job, wage and investment growth in his first term, and is set to do so again in his second term.”

I’m sorry, wait … what? In the second term that’s 45 days old? That one? Bad start, baby.

Thus far, his economic policy has shattered investor confidence, driven the tech stock prices into the red (Tesla is down 45% this year alone), and thrown the IRAs of much of his MAGA base into the wood chipper.

But, hey, those expensive Biden/Harris eggs.

In September 2020, Trump posted, “The Dow Jones just closed above 29,000! You are so lucky to have me as your President (wink emoji) With Joe Hiden’ it would crash (frowny face emoji)”.

Let us never elect a president who uses emojis ever again.

In February 2019, Trump posted this beauty:

“Since my election as President the Dow Jones is up 43% and the NASDAQ almost 50%. Great news for your 401(k)s as they continue to grow. We are bringing back America faster than anyone thought possible!”

That’s one way of looking at it.

Remember when Harris called out Trump on tariffs, saying they were a “sales tax on the American people?”

Memo to MAGA: She was right, and now you found out.

Again.

Jack Ohman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist who also writes at https://substack.com/@jackohman

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Good morning,YBs! : I’ll be working on my Sunday Chronicle piece and some other stuff. Maybe a national cartoon—not like I’m lacking for subjects. Have a great day and I’ll catch up later.—J.