President Trump’s second term promises transformative economic shifts affecting groceries, 401(k) values, and overall financial health. Early policies include new tariffs, extended tax cuts, and deregulatory moves. Grasping these changes is vital for financial planning. This article examines the potential implications and offers insights into navigating your economic future.
Key Takeaways
- During Trump’s first term, the U.S. faced economic challenges stemming from national debt increases, trade disruptions, and an economic decline influenced by pandemic-related shutdowns.
- Additional tariffs may impact the prices of everyday items such as groceries, vehicles, and building materials.
- Changes to corporate tax rates and manufacturing incentives may shift which sectors lead the market in the years ahead, including domestic manufacturing and energy.
- Immigration policy changes could significantly impact labor-intensive industries like agriculture, construction, and hospitality.
Economic Legacy of Trump’s First Term
To understand the economics of the second Trump term, it’s important to look at the consequences of his first. Until the pandemic began in early 2020, the economy had continued its post-2008 expansion, with unemployment reaching a 50-year low in 2019, inflation remaining near the U.S. Federal Reserve target of 2.0%, wage growth increasing in 2018 and 2019, and the S&P 500 Index hitting repeated records.
Impact of Tax Cuts and Tariff Policies
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the administration’s primary legislative achievement, lowered the top corporate tax rates from 35% to 21%, and cut personal income taxes for all income groups—more for the highest earners, as a percentage of income—which boosted consumer spending and corporate profits.
However, beneath these headline numbers, Trump’s signature policies set off significant economic waves. When the administration slapped tariffs of up to 25% on Chinese goods, from steel to electronics, the goal was to make the Chinese goods less competitive. It sparked a costly trade war with China, which retaliated with its own tariffs on U.S. goods like soybeans and cars. Meanwhile, U.S. companies often passed the higher costs to consumers. The Congressional Budget Office estimated these tariffs, save the pandemic, would have cost the average household about $1,277 in 2020 alone. Economists have found similar effects from tariffs on other trading partners.
In addition, the annual federal deficit grew significantly (about 46%), the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, among U.S. administrations—and that was before the pandemic struck.
Evaluating Trump’s COVID-19 Economic Response
The COVID-19 crisis dramatically reshaped Trump’s economic legacy. The Trump administration’s pandemic response was, one major nonpartisan study concluded, “slow,” “mismanaged,” and a “failure,” with assessments from the Lancet and others that from 25% to 40% of U.S. COVID-19 deaths in 2020 could have been averted by a better federal response. As the pandemic spread, unemployment soared to 14.7%, and the economy collapsed, contracting the most since the Great Depression.
The administration’s response included the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, which provided stimulus payments and expanded unemployment benefits, helping the U.S. crawl back from an economic nadir. Nevertheless, by the end of his first term, due to the pandemic, Trump was the first modern president to leave office with fewer jobs (2.7 million less) than when he started. In addition, the national debt increased by 33.1% due to pre-pandemic tax cuts, trade war effects, and COVID-19 relief spending.
Fast Fact
To start his second term, President Trump inherited a relatively strong economy. Experts predicted robust economic growth and moderate unemployment levels going forward. Though annual inflation stood at 3% that January, above the Federal Reserve’s target, it had come down from a high of 9% in June 2022. In all, the U.S. had engineered the strongest post-COVID economic recovery among its global peers.
Economic Strategies in Trump’s Second Term
Within weeks of taking office in January 2025, Trump rolled out sweeping economic changes that affect everything from your grocery bill to your retirement accounts. But Trump also proved as hard to predict as in his first administration, leaving economists leery of forecasting the effects of any of his proposals.
“At this point, almost everything in the Trump agenda is up for grabs,” Dean Baker, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told Investopedia after the administration delayed 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods in February 2025. “Trump announces tariffs, but then reverses himself before they take effect, so it is very hard to say much about their impact.”
As such, some humility in teasing out the effects of Trump’s policies is in order as we review the most significant proposals and enacted policies:
Trade and Tariffs
The administration has proposed significant and dramatic changes in international trade policy, such as:
- A 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico (delayed after negotiations)
- A 10% tariff on Chinese imports
- The removal of the de minimis exemption (exempts packages worth less than $800 from tariffs; delayed after inclusion in an executive order in January 2025)
- A proposed 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports
The Peterson Institute for International Economics projected that these tariffs could raise consumer prices by 2% to 3% on affected goods, cost the typical U.S. household more than $1,200 annually, and disrupt established supply chains.
“Any tariffs that stay in place will be inflationary,” Baker argued. “Right now with import taxes on aluminum and steel, car prices will see the biggest impact, with large appliances, like refrigerators, second.”
Tax Policy
The administration’s tax agenda centers on the following:
- Extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which significantly lowered corporate tax rates
- Reducing corporate tax rates to 15% for domestic manufacturers
- Expanding the state and local tax deduction
- Eliminating or cutting taxes on tips, overtime pay, and Social Security benefits
While these measures would put more money in Americans’ pockets, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates they would cut federal revenue by $5 trillion to $11.2 trillion over 10 years (depending on implementation) and increase the debt-to-GDP ratio to between 132% and 149% by 2035, absent offsetting measures.
Immigration and Labor Market
Trump has proposed significant changes to immigration policy, including the following:
- Large-scale deportation efforts targeting unauthorized immigrants
- Stricter work visa requirements
- Reduced legal immigration quotas
- Creation of detention facilities, including offshore at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
These shifts would particularly impact labor-intensive industries like agriculture and construction. While there are profound humanitarian consequences and unpredictable legal developments to consider, analysts have nevertheless attempted to provide an economic measure of these policies, with the Brookings Institution estimating a drop in GDP growth by half a point in 2025 alone and the Peterson Institute for International Economics saying that mass deportations would push prices for American goods up by 9.1% by 2028.
The DOGE Initiative
One of the most dramatic changes wrought by the Trump administration has been the rapid deployment of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE; created by executive order, it’s not a federal department but a task force led by Elon Musk). DOGE’s activities have included the following:
- Extensive staffing reviews and targeted staff removals across multiple agencies, including examining all new civil service hires
- Attempts to dismantle or drastically cut federal agencies, including USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
- Accessing federal payment systems, including those of the U.S. Treasury
DOGE’s aggressive moves to shutter and downsize federal agencies without the backing of Congressional authority and U.S. law could, if allowed to stand by U.S. courts, lead to significant job losses in Washington and other regions with high concentrations of government employment. It could also reshape how federal grants and contracts are allocated, with Musk himself a major federal contractor. The knock-on effects of cuts to research would be long-term but have immediate consequences on jobs around research centers across the U.S.
Perhaps the most contested aspect of DOGE’s operations has involved the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, which handles trillions of dollars in federal payments. The administration has told courts that inexperienced DOGE employees have been granted access to crucial payment systems, with legal and security experts worried about illegitimate payment freezes and cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
If DOGE’s activities end up interrupting federal payments, the economic fallout could be severe, especially if it affects the creditworthiness of the U.S. Treasury.
Overall Economic Impact of Trump’s Policies
Trump’s presidency, especially his economic policies, has a lasting effect on American financial life. Key initiatives like the expansion of tariffs and proposed changes to tax policy could alter costs for consumers and businesses significantly.
DOGE’s potential reorganization of federal agencies might also disrupt employment in government sectors. Moreover, uncertainties remain, especially regarding the legal challenges to some of these changes. As Trump’s policies unfold, individuals and businesses must prepare for ongoing economic volatility and shifts that will influence financial decision-making.