President Donald Trump declared in the Oval Office on Monday that the United States has “the strongest economy we’ve ever had” and is experiencing “the opposite of a depression,” a claim that economists immediately challenged as disconnected from reality.
When asked by Wall Street Journal reporter Philip Wegmann if he would risk an economic catastrophe in the conflict with Iran, Trump responded, “Nuclear weapon supersedes depression.” He added, “The way we’re doing it, we have the opposite of a depression. We’re doing really well. The numbers are incredible; the oil is at a level that nobody’s ever seen before; oil prices are way down.” Oil prices have indeed fluctuated amid tensions with Iran and dropped on Monday after the U.S. Treasury authorized Iranian crude sales through August.
Trump’s Repeated Claims vs. Economic Reality
Trump told Wegmann that Iran has no leverage, saying “They’re gone,” while Americans are “setting records.” He asserted, “We have the strongest economy we’ve ever had. We have 18 to 19 trillion dollars being poured into our country.” However, Trump did not specify the source of this figure. The White House website lists $10.6 trillion in foreign investment pledges since his return to office, a number economists have disputed. The president has used similar language repeatedly, including at the G7 summit in France last Wednesday, in the Oval Office in May 2019, at a Turning Point USA event in July 2019, and while campaigning in March 2020. The Washington Post estimated that during a three-month period in 2018, Trump said some variation of the phrase at least 40 times.
Jared Bernstein, an economist and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Biden, told HuffPost that the phrase has become a reflex for Trump to detach from actual economic conditions. “It’s not a recession, that’s for sure, but to a lot of people, it kind of feels like it,” Bernstein said. “Having the president say everything’s fine when large majorities of Americans are very clear that everything is far from fine in their economic lives — it’s a great way of talking past everyone.”
Disconnect Between Trump’s Narrative and Public Sentiment
A Pew Research study from February found that Americans’ top economic concerns are the costs of healthcare, housing, and consumer goods like food. General views of the economy have been negative for six years, though 49% of Republican-identifying respondents now rate it more positively since Trump’s second term began. Bernstein added, “[Trump is] showing when it comes to the economy, he lives in this gilded castle, quite detached from how most people experience their economic lives.”
While the U.S. economy is not in a recession or depression—GDP and productivity are growing—Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Michigan, told HuffPost that this is not exceptional. “The eternal fact is that economies tend to grow,” he said. “With the exception of periods in recession, which is when the economy shrinks, it’s the nature of things that we have: More people employed every quarter. It’s also the nature of things that we tend to have higher prices each and every quarter as well.” Wolfers argued that calling the economy “the opposite of a depression” is inaccurate. “There’s an honest conversation where you could say the world’s not as bad as many of the president’s critics suspect it is,” he said. But “by no means is this the opposite of a depression.”
Consumer Sentiment at Historic Lows
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index plunged to a historic low in May, reflecting economic stress driven by inflation, tariff concerns, and rising energy prices. Although it rose 9% in June, it remains about 19% lower than a year ago. Joanne Hsu, the survey director, said in a statement that the general view of the economy is “relatively dour” and that Americans are “burdened by the recent escalation in inflation and worry.” Bernstein summed up the disparity: “It looks great for Elon Musk right now, but if you’re a young person trying to buy a house, it looks pretty tough.”
