Trump boasts he’s accomplishing great things. So why is the economy so sluggish?
President Donald Trump promised to bring prices down by now. He vowed to get gasoline prices under $2 a gallon and balance the federal budget.
Sure enough, he told the nation Tuesday night, he’s on his way to building a more robust economy.
Since taking office Jan. 20, “it has been nothing but swift and unrelenting action to usher in the greatest and most successful era in the history of our country,” Trump said.
That’s debatable.
The rate of inflation is up. Gasoline prices are far from $2 a gallon and showing no signs of heading in that direction anytime soon. New tariffs threaten to slow the economy. And his tax cuts, the signature initiative of his presidency, are months away from winning approval.
Historically nothing usually matters more to the success of a presidency than the state of the economy. President Joe Biden never fully recovered from the 41-year high in inflation of June 2022, and Trump reminded viewers Tuesday of that.
But has Trump made things better? Not yet. A look at five of his economic claims Tuesday:
Will prices stabilize?
“When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One,” he said at an August 2024 press conference. Tuesday, he said “We inherited from the last administration an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare.”
The latest Consumer Price Index, the government’s measure of price trends, found prices were up 3% for the 12 months ending in January, when Biden’s term ended.
That’s historically low but higher than any of the four years of the first Trump administration, when inflation peaked at 2.4% in 2018. During Biden’s term, the index averaged 8% in 2022 and 4.1% in 2023.
But there were troubling signs of what’s ahead: Prices jumped 0.5%, seasonally adjusted, from December to January after climbing 0.4% the previous month.
A president has only limited ability to influence prices. One reason for last month’s price spike, for instance, has been the price of eggs, up 15.2% over the month as bird flu ravages the poultry population.
Will gasoline prices drop?
“I will cut your energy prices in half within 12 months. … Cut them in half within 12 months of taking office. That’s going to bring everything down,” Trump said in October. He reiterated that theme Tuesday night.
He said in September he could get gasoline prices under $2 a gallon.
But any president’s ability to influence energy prices is small. Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, which tracks gasoline prices, said there was a “a zero percent chance” any president could unilaterally bring prices down that far.
Energy prices are influenced by a complex mix of factors: International policy, different taxes in different states, supply chains, environmental regulations and more.
On Wednesday, the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in California is $4.76, according to AAA. While that’s down from the 2022 peak, it’s up from $4.50 a month ago.
The average U.S. price is $3.11.
Will taxes be cut?
“We’re seeking permanent income tax cuts all across the board, and to get urgently needed relief to Americans hit especially hard by inflation, I’m calling for no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on Social Security benefits for our great seniors,” Trump said Tuesday.
Any congressional approval of tax cuts is months away. Any reductions have to endure a lengthy process that began last month and is nowhere close to being done..
One big problem has emerged: How to pay for all these cuts. The House passed legislation that would lead to $4.5 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years, but estimates are that much more funding will be needed.
Most of the Trump-inspired 2017 tax cuts, which lowered tax rates and provided more benefits to business, expire at the end of this year. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates extending them for 10 years could cost between $3.9 trillion and $4.8 trillion.
But add in the other tax breaks Trump has mentioned and that figure balloons to between $5 trillion and $11.2 trillion.
That means lawmakers either have to find more spending cuts - a nearly impossible task in a Congress where most lawmakers face elections next year – or scale back Trump’s plans.
Can the federal budget be balanced?
“And in the near future, I want to do what has not been done in 24 years: balance the federal budget — we’re going to balance it,” Trump said Tuesday.
That’s highly unlikely anytime soon. Congress is divided politically, and Democrats are resisting the big spending cuts Trump wants. And the tax cuts will cost trillions.
It’s so difficult to get any spending passed that Congress is still trying to figure out how to fund the government past March 14, when current funding runs out. That negotiation is over a budget that runs through Sept. 30.
Any plan for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 is still months away. The fiscal 2024 deficit was $1.83 trillion. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects it will grow to $1.9 trillion this year.
Will tariffs help the economy?
There’s tremendous unease about Trump’s Tuesday decision to impose stiff tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico and China.
Stock markets plunged Monday and Tuesday, and studies have warned that the tariffs will weaken the American economy.
The conservative-leaning Tax Foundation this week estimated that Trump’s new tariffs would shrink the economy slightly and reduce after-tax incomes by an average of 0.6%. The figures do not take into account foreign retaliation.
Tariffs would increase federal tax revenue by $142 billion this year, which effectively means an average tax increase of $1,072 per U.S. household.
This story was originally published March 5, 2025 at 8:30 AM with the headline "Trump boasts he’s accomplishing great things. So why is the economy so sluggish?."
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