‘If he’d stayed on the golf course, we’d be in a better place’: experts on Trump’s tariffs, one year on

Last April, the president unleashed a tidal wave of tariffs on ‘liberation day’. Analysts say the policy has failed, even by the Trump administration’s own terms

Before Donald Trump declared “liberation day” on 2 April 2025 and shocked the world by raising import tariffs on nearly every country the US did business with, he had spent almost three months causing chaos in Washington.

The wholesale slashing of government jobs under Doge (the “department of government efficiency”) and the defunding of US aid agencies had shown White House watchers that the US president was in a hurry to upset institutions he considered profligate or useless.

Investors quickly understood that chaos was an essential tool in Trump’s armoury. Almost as soon as he was inaugurated, there was a steady decline in the value of the dollar against other currencies. Investors sold assets denominated in dollars and bought assets elsewhere: Europe, Asia, South America.

“If you think that discouraging investors from buying assets in the US is a victory, then you don’t believe in a growing economy,” said Dario Perkins, the head of global research at the consultancy TS Lombard. “If it was possible for Trump to have spent the last 14 months on the golf course, we would be in a better place.”

Russ Mould, the investment director of the British stockbroker AJ Bell, said: “America is still home to the world’s largest economy and its reserve currency, as well as the globe’s largest equity and bond markets, but investors continue to reassess their exposure one year on from liberation day.”

The economy has either gone sideways or declined, depending on the preferred measure. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that US companies, which were supposed to be the victors in Trump’s new tariff war, stopped hiring almost as soon as liberation day was announced.

Significant revisions in February to data covering 2025 pushed down payroll employment by 403,000 jobs, resulting in the addition of 181,000 jobs last year. This small boost is set against the 163 million people who are employed in the US.

Figures from the Conference Board, a US thinktank, show consumer confidence sliding after Trump took office. A brief recovery appears to coincide with a huge climbdown on 12 May – the day the US and China agreed to defuse their post-liberation day tariff escalation.

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