Trump's tariff tumult: Economic brinkmanship sparks crisis fears

"Time" points out that the president's protectionist economic policy threatens both large and small businesses, as well as jobs.

CNN assesses that in less than 100 days, Donald Trump has "taken the US economy to the brink of a crisis." The "Economist" magazine wrote that investor flight from the dollar, a consequence of the trade war, could devastate America's finances. Nobel laureate in economics Paul Krugman warned that a collapse in the US bond market, combined with a decline in the US currency, resembles the symptoms of crises in developing countries.

Krugman wrote that the volatility and unpredictability of the president's policy is paralysing American business and threatens to repeat the "Lehman Brothers moment," where the bank's collapse marked the beginning of the financial crisis. The New York Times warned that a risky strategy involving tariffs could escalate into a financial crisis. Unlike the two major downturns of the past 20 years—the global crisis of 2008 and the pandemic in 2020—this potential crisis, the paper noted, would be attributed to a single individual.

Trump imposed tariffs on 180 countries and territories, including the uninhabited Heard Island and McDonald Islands, inhabited mainly by penguins. The islands can only be reached during a fortnight-long ship journey.

The "New York Times," "Wall Street Journal," and Paul Krugman assess that Trump's most chaotic policy so far has been regarding tariffs, which have been announced, suspended, implemented, frozen again, or limited by introducing exceptions.

Axios points out that Trump, in the first months of his administration, introduced more states of emergency than any of his predecessors in recent US history and now uses this tactic "aggressively and creatively" to expand his powers, diminish the role of Congress, and bypass regulations.

Elon Musk's team sent an email to all federal officials (over 2 million people), threatening dismissal for those who did not list five things they accomplished in the previous week. Heads of many departments, offices, and agencies like the CIA exempted employees from this requirement.

Musk himself admitted he made a mistake when he ordered funding cuts to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus in Africa, which the administration also had to retract.

The Trump administration revoked, then reinstated - after an unfavourable court ruling - funding for Radio Free Europe.

A federal court also temporarily suspended the enforcement of Trump's order limiting the right to acquire US citizenship for children of immigrants born in America, which a judge deemed "blatantly unconstitutional."