Economics viewpoint Risks rising with every intervention by Trump

Risks rising with every intervention by Trump

- Heather Stewart

Donald Trump observed blithely last week that if his cherished tariff regime were struck down by the US supreme court, he might need to "unwind" some of the trade deals struck since he declared "liberation day" in April.

It was a reminder, as if it were needed, that nothing about Trump's economic policy is set in stone. Not only does the ageing president alter his demands on a whim, but it is unclear to what extent he has the power to make them stick.

Yet even if the "reciprocal" tariffs first announced on 2 April were rolled back, they are only one aspect of a much wider assault on the last vestiges of what was once known as the "Washington consensus".

To name just a few of Trump's recent interventions, he has taken a 10% government stake in the US tech company Intel, demanded 15% of the revenue of Nvidia's chip sales to China, and suggested that the chief executive of Goldman Sachs should go.

This at the same as taking a sledgehammer to Federal Reserve independence by lobbing insults at the chair, Jerome Powell, and trying to sack Lisa Cook from the central bank's board. The head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics was removed by Trump after a run of poor jobs data; the chief of the National Labor Relations Board, Jennifer Abruzzo, was fired, too.