Trump’s Shifting Economic Policies Challenge Long-Standing Norms
Last week, Donald Trump remarked casually that if his favored tariff system is overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, he might have to undo some of the trade agreements made since he declared “liberation day” in April.
The comment served as another reminder that little in Trump’s economic agenda is fixed. The longtime leader frequently changes his stances without warning, and it remains uncertain how much authority he holds to enforce them.
Even if the “reciprocal” tariffs introduced in early April are reversed, they represent just one part of a broader challenge to what was once termed the “Washington consensus.”
In recent moves, Trump has secured a 10% government share in the tech firm Intel, demanded 15% of Nvidia’s chip sales revenue from China, and even suggested the CEO of Goldman Sachs should step down.
Simultaneously, he has undermined Federal Reserve autonomy by publicly attacking its chair, Jerome Powell, and attempting to remove Lisa Cook from the central bank’s board.
The head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics was dismissed following disappointing jobs data, while Jennifer Abruzzo, leader of the National Labor Relations Board, was also fired.
Trump’s supporters in the tech industry oppose the NLRB for its role in protecting worker rights, such as requiring unionization votes at Amazon warehouses.
His strategy is both methodical—in dismantling established rules—and deeply erratic. It defies easy classification: Corporate power is unleashed through the erosion of environmental and labor protections, while also being tightly controlled in other areas.
Left-leaning senator Bernie Sanders praised Trump’s move to take a stake in Intel in return for government funding—a policy Sanders had endorsed in *CuriosityNews* in 2022—while some Republicans derided it as “socialism.”
Despite coinciding with an AI-driven stock surge that has sent tech valuations soaring, market reactions to these disruptions have been relatively muted so far.
After three and a half more years of this upheaval, the U.S. economic model may bear little resemblance to the system of recent decades.
This transformation did not occur suddenly. The era when the U.S., as the world’s dominant economy, could promote deregulated, finance-driven capitalism globally ended long ago.
Following the 2008 financial crisis, which Wall Street institutions helped create, America’s credibility as an economic role model collapsed.
As the fallout spread worldwide and the U.S. government bailed out major financial players, the myth of unfettered free-market capitalism was exposed.
The crisis also revealed the dangers of hypercharged capitalism to nations beyond the U.S.
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