# Trump’s Economy, One (Second) Year In

An episode of [Big Take](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1578096201), 19 Jan 2026, 18 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/825d4e29-b616-46f4-afd7-ae2b0013005c/43d9ccfe-4587-4b7f-9442-b3d4016f84c3/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=8b1dd624-a026-43e9-8b57-ae2b00130066

This week marks the end of President Trump’s first year back in office. His busy economic agenda included global tariffs, deregulation, tax cuts and so much more. The deep and dramatic changes the Trump administration proposed and imposed have fundamentally changed the way the US does business. On today’s Big Take podcast, host David Gura and Bloomberg’s Nancy Cook and Mark Niquette discuss which initiatives have had the biggest impact so far and which are likely to last. Hosted by David Gura; Produced by Julia Press; Reported by Nancy Cook and Mark Niquette; Edited by Tracey Samuelson and Patrick Hirsch; Fact-checking by Eleanor Harrison-Dengate; Engineering by Katie McMurran; Senior Producer: Naomi Shavin; Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Weaver. Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
[0:10] Speaker 2: Tuesday marks the end of the first year of President
[0:13] Speaker 2: Trump's second term, and it's been busy well. Cutting down
[0:16] Speaker 2: the size of government. The Trump administration moved quickly and
[0:20] Speaker 2: decisively to reshape the US economy, and by extension, it's
[0:24] Speaker 2: reshaped the global economy.
[0:26] Speaker 3: President Donald Trump's trade wars bring uncertainty, drive up costs,
[0:31] Speaker 3: and disrupt global commerce.
[0:33] Speaker 2: So called one Big Beautiful Bill, American hiring plumbting the
[0:36] Speaker 2: cost of groceries there is a major source of stress.
[0:38] Speaker 2: Investigation of Fed shair Jerome Powell as sparking backlash.
[0:42] Speaker 1: I think that he and his team have come in
[0:44] Speaker 1: and really tried to juice the economy and sort of
[0:46] Speaker 1: take a bunch of guardrails off of it.
[0:49] Speaker 2: Nancy Cook is a political reporter for Bloomberg. I spoke
[0:52] Speaker 2: with her and Mark Nikatt, our colleague, who's beat is
[0:56] Speaker 2: the real economy.
[0:57] Speaker 3: The administration really looks at effects the economy and boosting
[1:01] Speaker 3: the economy is kind of a three legged stool. With
[1:04] Speaker 3: taxes and the tax cuts deregulation. Trump has talked about
[1:08] Speaker 3: eliminating ten rules for every new rules, and the third
[1:12] Speaker 3: leg of the stool would be trade and adjusting what
[1:14] Speaker 3: he sees as a trade in balance with other countries
[1:17] Speaker 3: to boost US manufacturing and production.
[1:26] Speaker 2: I'm David Gerrett, and this is the big take from
[1:28] Speaker 2: Bloomberg News today on the show. The deep and dramatic
[1:31] Speaker 2: changes the Trump administration has made and proposed and imposed,
[1:36] Speaker 2: and the effects they've had on the way the US
[1:38] Speaker 2: does business, which have had the biggest impact and which
[1:41] Speaker 2: are likely to last. So we're not going to get
[1:52] Speaker 2: through everything President Trump has done in twenty twenty five.
[1:56] Speaker 2: Our time is limited. So I asked Bloomberg's Nancy Cook
[1:59] Speaker 2: and Mark Niquette to help me make sense of some
[2:01] Speaker 2: of the administration's biggest initiatives related to business and the economy.
[2:06] Speaker 2: And we started with what's become the hallmark of his
[2:09] Speaker 2: second term so far. For more than half a century,
[2:13] Speaker 2: the US had been a huge supporter of free trade.
[2:16] Speaker 2: President Trump has certainly changed that over the last year.
[2:18] Speaker 2: He slapped these big, across the board tariffs on long
[2:21] Speaker 2: standing trading partners. Mark, What has the effect of that
[2:24] Speaker 2: been on the global economy? The president going down that.
[2:27] Speaker 3: Path, it's completely reordered global trade. One. Because of the
[2:31] Speaker 3: scope of these tariffs, you know, highest tariff rate now
[2:34] Speaker 3: since the nineteen thirties in the US, but also because
[2:37] Speaker 3: of the uncertainty that it caused for US businesses, particularly manufacturers,
[2:42] Speaker 3: because the tariffs kept going on coming off, Trump would
[2:46] Speaker 3: adjust the rates. Businesses just were not able to plan
[2:50] Speaker 3: because of the vacillating tariff rates. And we saw just
[2:54] Speaker 3: massive swings in trade because of the tariffs. We saw,
[2:58] Speaker 3: you know, companies rushing to import good so it's ahead
[3:00] Speaker 3: of tariffs, which affected the trade balance. And we just
[3:04] Speaker 3: saw a bunch of activity related to companies trying to
[3:07] Speaker 3: get ahead of or around Trump's tariffs.
[3:10] Speaker 1: You know, it hasn't shown up in economic data as
[3:13] Speaker 1: much as people thought it would, and I feel like
[3:15] Speaker 1: we're still waiting to see the effects of it. Partly
[3:17] Speaker 1: it's because Trump keeps changing his mind on the trade.
[3:20] Speaker 1: When there was those elections in November where Democrats won
[3:25] Speaker 1: the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, and it
[3:28] Speaker 1: just sort of was revealed that Americans are really mad
[3:31] Speaker 1: about still high prices, you know, just a sense that
[3:34] Speaker 1: American life is unaffordable. I think the White House really
[3:36] Speaker 1: pivoted at that point and started to do even more
[3:39] Speaker 1: trade carve outs on things like coffee and bananas, you know,
[3:42] Speaker 1: really rolling back those tariffs. And so one of the
[3:45] Speaker 1: things with trade policy is it's just been a moving
[3:48] Speaker 1: target sort of every month. It looks completely different depending
[3:51] Speaker 1: on which CEOs went in and tried to make the
[3:54] Speaker 1: case of how there needed to be fewer tariffs on retailers.
[3:58] Speaker 2: You know.
[3:58] Speaker 1: And so it's just changed so much that it is
[4:00] Speaker 1: hard to get a real clear picture of what its
[4:03] Speaker 1: economic effect has been like in the first year, because
[4:06] Speaker 1: it's kind of this thing that's changing and morphine kind
[4:10] Speaker 1: of week after week.
[4:11] Speaker 2: And Nancy, it's the president who is moving that target.
[4:14] Speaker 2: And I want to ask you about the politics of
[4:16] Speaker 2: trade in the past. Historically it's been the providence of
[4:19] Speaker 2: Congress to determine trade policy. That is not the case anymore.
[4:23] Speaker 2: And I wonder how surprising it is to you that lawmakers,
[4:26] Speaker 2: Republican lawmakers have really taken a back seat here and
[4:29] Speaker 2: seeded a lot of that power to the president.
[4:31] Speaker 1: Well, I think it's been very surprising. You know, I
[4:33] Speaker 1: covered the first Trump White House, and so I've been
[4:35] Speaker 1: covering Trump for almost a decade now, and I think
[4:40] Speaker 1: one of the interesting things between the first term, and
[4:42] Speaker 1: the second term is that Republican lawmakers have ceded basically
[4:46] Speaker 1: all their power to the Trump White House. Trade is
[4:49] Speaker 1: totally in the authority of Congress. But Trump this time
[4:52] Speaker 1: came in trying to sort of use these different statues
[4:56] Speaker 1: or sections or different laws to give himself the authority
[5:00] Speaker 1: and has completely run over Republican lawmakers on this and
[5:04] Speaker 1: has really done so without a lot of protests. Now,
[5:06] Speaker 1: the one backstop that we're waiting to see what happens
[5:09] Speaker 1: with is the Supreme Court. We're expecting the Supreme Court
[5:12] Speaker 1: to rule on this one legal statue that Trump tried
[5:17] Speaker 1: to use to give himself authority to make rulings on trade,
[5:21] Speaker 1: and a lot of Trump advisors I talk to you
[5:23] Speaker 1: think that the Supreme Court, in a rare rebuke of Trump,
[5:26] Speaker 1: will not rule in his favor. I think what will
[5:28] Speaker 1: happen is that it won't pull back from the tariffs.
[5:31] Speaker 1: I think it just means that they will lean on
[5:33] Speaker 1: a different legal authority to pursue the same policies. Out
[5:37] Speaker 1: of all of Trump's economic policies, trade is the thing
[5:41] Speaker 1: that I would say he feels most deeply, So even
[5:44] Speaker 1: if the Supreme Court strikes it down. I think he'll
[5:46] Speaker 1: just continue to pursue it, but just with a different
[5:49] Speaker 1: explanation for why he's doing it.
[5:51] Speaker 2: Mark, we know that President Trump loves tariffs. He reaffirmed
[5:54] Speaker 2: that in a speech that he gave to the Economic
[5:56] Speaker 2: Club of Detroit not just a few days ago. Favorite words,
[6:00] Speaker 2: favorite word. Seeing him impose those tariffs for variety of reasons,
[6:03] Speaker 2: and a big one has been to encourage a kind
[6:05] Speaker 2: of manufacturing renaissance in the US. How's that working out?
[6:09] Speaker 3: It's not. And part of the problem is it might
[6:12] Speaker 3: be just too early because these kind of reassuring actions
[6:16] Speaker 3: that Trump is looking for and increase in manufacturing production
[6:21] Speaker 3: are in some cases years long investments and commitments by companies,
[6:25] Speaker 3: and they've been unwilling in a lot of cases to
[6:28] Speaker 3: make these kind of commitments because the tariff rates keep
[6:32] Speaker 3: changing and they don't know where the trade policy is
[6:34] Speaker 3: ultimately going to land. So the intent clearly is to,
[6:38] Speaker 3: as Trump says when he talks about tariffs, is that
[6:40] Speaker 3: if you make your goods or your products in the US,
[6:44] Speaker 3: you don't have to pay the tariff. That's the whole
[6:47] Speaker 3: intent behind it. But it's just not that simple because
[6:50] Speaker 3: in a lot of cases, companies need inputs that they
[6:53] Speaker 3: can't make in the US for production in the US,
[6:58] Speaker 3: and that's those inputs now the prices are higher because
[7:00] Speaker 3: of the tariffs. So I think the big picture is,
[7:04] Speaker 3: you know, we have yet to see sort of significant
[7:07] Speaker 3: reshoring activity because of the tariffs. You know, that might
[7:10] Speaker 3: still be calmly, but in the meantime, you know, we're
[7:13] Speaker 3: seeing manufacturers in particular struggle and we certainly seen a
[7:17] Speaker 3: decrease in manufacturing employment.
[7:20] Speaker 2: Maybe you could walk us through sort of the way
[7:22] Speaker 2: that the President and broad Strokes has kind of reshaped
[7:24] Speaker 2: the regulatory landscape here in the last year.
[7:27] Speaker 1: Sure, well, I think, you know, like a lot of
[7:29] Speaker 1: Republican presidents, he just has thought that there has been
[7:31] Speaker 1: too many rules, and so he has like really undone
[7:35] Speaker 1: a lot of you know, regulations out of EPA and
[7:37] Speaker 1: a lot of energy regulations, both to encourage a lot
[7:41] Speaker 1: more oil drilling and exploration, but also just roll back
[7:44] Speaker 1: things like rules on pesticides or different things like that.
[7:47] Speaker 1: They have really rolled back some bank regulations about you know,
[7:52] Speaker 1: how much money banks need to have, like things that
[7:54] Speaker 1: were put in place after the financial crisis, and so
[7:56] Speaker 1: they've rolled that back to be more bank friendly.
[8:00] Speaker 2: Immigration, mark trade a big policy party for the president.
[8:03] Speaker 2: Immigration is another one, and you scour the data as
[8:07] Speaker 2: it comes out. What do we know about how President
[8:09] Speaker 2: Trump's immigration policy is impacting the economy.
[8:13] Speaker 3: There's no question that, you know, his immigration policy has
[8:17] Speaker 3: has had an impact on the economy, if nothing else,
[8:19] Speaker 3: because you know, we've essentially shut down the southern border.
[8:22] Speaker 3: I mean, he succeeded in his promise in the campaign
[8:25] Speaker 3: to close the border. You know, we've seen almost no
[8:30] Speaker 3: immigration from the southern border lease statistics would suggest that.
[8:34] Speaker 3: But we've also seen Trump, you know, go after legal immigration.
[8:38] Speaker 3: You know, there's a big fight right now over Trump's
[8:40] Speaker 3: proposal to charge one hundred thousand dollars fee for H
[8:45] Speaker 3: one B visas, which are the sort of the work
[8:47] Speaker 3: visas that tech companies in particular use to hire skilled
[8:51] Speaker 3: foreign workers that they believe they need. The US Chamber
[8:54] Speaker 3: has sued to stop that and it's in the courts
[8:56] Speaker 3: right now. But we've just seen a broad sort of
[8:59] Speaker 3: reaction two companies that depend on migrant labor. I'm thinking
[9:02] Speaker 3: like construction, agricultural sectors, and a real concern that you know,
[9:08] Speaker 3: there'll be a shortage of workers in these industries because
[9:11] Speaker 3: of the curtailing of both legal and illegal immigration.
[9:15] Speaker 2: Certainly, the relationship between the president and the Federal Reserve
[9:18] Speaker 2: is one that stands out. And there have been presidents
[9:20] Speaker 2: in the past who've disagreed with FED chairpersons and their decisions,
[9:24] Speaker 2: but this is something unique. The level of public criticism
[9:27] Speaker 2: that we've seen, denigration both of the FED chair and
[9:30] Speaker 2: the institution itself, intimidation through the courts. How far are
[9:34] Speaker 2: we mark from what that relationship between the White House
[9:37] Speaker 2: and the FED was like under previous administrations.
[9:40] Speaker 3: I mean, it's been sort of NonStop, you know, attacks
[9:43] Speaker 3: on Jerome Poal in particular for you know, not lowering
[9:46] Speaker 3: interest rates fast enough for the president's view, and it's
[9:50] Speaker 3: completely upended, you know, the relationship that we've come used
[9:54] Speaker 3: to between a presidential administration and the Federal Reserve and
[9:58] Speaker 3: sort of this long held idea, particularly since you know
[10:02] Speaker 3: Richard Nixon, that you know, the FED, which should have independence,
[10:05] Speaker 3: and that the US economy benefits when the FED is
[10:09] Speaker 3: allowed to make decisions about interest rates and monetary policy
[10:13] Speaker 3: separate from an independent from executive actions and executives' authorities
[10:18] Speaker 3: that are more interested in maybe the political outcomes than
[10:21] Speaker 3: the economic impacts.
[10:24] Speaker 2: These concerns about the fed's independents have caused the dollar
[10:27] Speaker 2: to weaken, raising questions about its role as the world's
[10:30] Speaker 2: reserve currency. And another relationship Trump has changed is the
[10:34] Speaker 2: one between the US government and private companies. It's taken
[10:38] Speaker 2: an equity stake in Intel and made a revenue sharing
[10:41] Speaker 2: agreement with Nvidia. Nancy, I'm sure that you have spoken
[10:45] Speaker 2: to traditional Republicans as I have, who just express astonishment
[10:49] Speaker 2: that this is the direction the Republican Party is going.
[10:51] Speaker 2: And now I mean suffice to say, this is a
[10:53] Speaker 2: sea change when it comes to Republican Party politics.
[10:56] Speaker 1: It has been a remarkable moment sort of seeing the
[10:58] Speaker 1: US government take stake and Intel, for instance. But Trump,
[11:02] Speaker 1: the thing about him is he always wants a deal
[11:04] Speaker 1: on the economy, and so what has happened is the
[11:07] Speaker 1: CEOs have gone in and you know, he's managed to
[11:11] Speaker 1: take stakes in the companies. Now, the argument that many
[11:13] Speaker 1: people in his administration make is he's taking stakes in
[11:16] Speaker 1: companies that are critical to national security, so like critical
[11:19] Speaker 1: minerals or you know, chip makers. But it is just
[11:23] Speaker 1: so interesting because it's also really this democratic idea of
[11:28] Speaker 1: you know, the government should be more involved in controlling things,
[11:31] Speaker 1: And it's really not something that traditional Republicans have thought of,
[11:34] Speaker 1: and so but it has become a really key part
[11:37] Speaker 1: of the Trump agenda. And I'm really curious just to
[11:39] Speaker 1: see what that looks like at the end of three years,
[11:41] Speaker 1: Like what companies does the US government partially own at
[11:44] Speaker 1: the end of the four year Trump term And is
[11:47] Speaker 1: that something that sticks beyond him If it's President j. D.
[11:51] Speaker 1: Vance or Marco Rubio is running for president, what do
[11:53] Speaker 1: they say about that? Is that really part of the
[11:55] Speaker 1: Republican idea at this point for the economy?
[11:58] Speaker 2: We dig into that question after the break. Presidents all
[12:11] Speaker 2: leave their mark on the country, some more than others.
[12:14] Speaker 2: A new president may try to undo the signature policies
[12:17] Speaker 2: of his predecessor or not. President Bind for example, did
[12:21] Speaker 2: not reverse the tariffs on China that President Trump put
[12:24] Speaker 2: in place during his first term. So to understand the
[12:27] Speaker 2: potential staying power of the big economic changes Trump pursued
[12:31] Speaker 2: last year, I asked Bloomberg's Nancy Cook and Marketquette how
[12:34] Speaker 2: difficult it might be for future administrations to reverse them. Think,
[12:38] Speaker 2: for example, the tax cuts in Trump's one Big Beautiful bill,
[12:42] Speaker 2: that big tax and spending bill.
[12:44] Speaker 3: The Trump administration is really counting on big economic boost
[12:49] Speaker 3: from that bill in twenty twenty six, from both the
[12:53] Speaker 3: continuation of the tax cuts that were enacted in his
[12:56] Speaker 3: first term and Congress didn't change in the interim. Also
[13:00] Speaker 3: those were augmented, you know, we had the no tax
[13:02] Speaker 3: on tips and no tax on overtime, and the administrations
[13:05] Speaker 3: counting on you know, a big boost from that. We've
[13:07] Speaker 3: seen estimates of thirty billion to one hundred billion dollars
[13:11] Speaker 3: in additional refunds for consumers as a result of these
[13:14] Speaker 3: tax cuts. But also there's business tax provisions in that
[13:18] Speaker 3: one Big Beautiful Bill, you know, allowing businesses to fully
[13:21] Speaker 3: expense capital investments, for example, and the expectation is that
[13:25] Speaker 3: we're going to see a big jump in capital expenditures
[13:29] Speaker 3: from companies as a result of these provisions in twenty
[13:32] Speaker 3: twenty six. So the combination of the consumer tax breaks
[13:36] Speaker 3: and the business tax breaks and the One Big Beautiful Bill,
[13:39] Speaker 3: I think we're going to see play out in twenty
[13:41] Speaker 3: twenty six, and that probably will go a long way
[13:43] Speaker 3: toward determining, you know, whether these breaks stay in effect.
[13:47] Speaker 3: You know, with the next administrations or if there's any
[13:51] Speaker 3: kind of adjustments made as a result.
[13:53] Speaker 1: You know, the Republican lawmakers I have would say on
[13:55] Speaker 1: most economic issues really haven't protested. It was in interesting
[14:00] Speaker 1: covering the tax bill and that moving through the Hill,
[14:02] Speaker 1: because there was Trump did have one idea at one
[14:05] Speaker 1: point where he wanted to raise taxes on millionaires. It
[14:08] Speaker 1: was a populist idea, and Republican lawmakers really put their
[14:11] Speaker 1: foot down there and that's one of the only instances
[14:14] Speaker 1: I can think of where they really told him. Now,
[14:17] Speaker 1: not publicly, but privately. There was a lot of discussion
[14:19] Speaker 1: between the Hill and the White House.
[14:23] Speaker 2: Market's all wrapped up in this issue of affordability, which
[14:26] Speaker 2: is something the President talked a lot about on the
[14:28] Speaker 2: campaign trail and has been more reluctant to talk about
[14:31] Speaker 2: in recent speeches. He claims he's made a lot of
[14:33] Speaker 2: inroads when it comes to affordability. As you survey the
[14:35] Speaker 2: economic landscape, has he.
[14:38] Speaker 3: I think you can point more to things that he's
[14:42] Speaker 3: done that have added costs to products or even inflation,
[14:47] Speaker 3: particularly with trade, than you can to things that he's
[14:51] Speaker 3: done to lower costs. I mean, I think that's one
[14:54] Speaker 3: of the reasons you're seeing President Trump roll out these
[14:57] Speaker 3: proposals like banning corporate ownership of single family homes or
[15:03] Speaker 3: capping credit card fees at ten percent a year. I
[15:06] Speaker 3: think it's sort of an acknowledgment that at least he
[15:09] Speaker 3: needs to be seen as doing more to address affordability.
[15:13] Speaker 3: But you know, we continue to see high prices for groceries,
[15:16] Speaker 3: beef and other products that I think is what's really driving,
[15:20] Speaker 3: you know, the depressed consumer sentiment surveys we're saying, where
[15:24] Speaker 3: you know, folks just don't feel good about the cost
[15:26] Speaker 3: of living or the direction of the economy.
[15:28] Speaker 2: The Trump administration is engaged in this kind of bold
[15:31] Speaker 2: experiment to change the global economy, change America's place in
[15:34] Speaker 2: the world. We've seen global supply chain shift, relationships change
[15:38] Speaker 2: that times has been in conflict with President Trump's desire
[15:41] Speaker 2: to tackle inflation and affordability concerns. What do folks you
[15:44] Speaker 2: talk to say about how long this is likely to
[15:47] Speaker 2: stay in place? Yes, during this administration, but after President
[15:51] Speaker 2: Trump leaves.
[15:51] Speaker 1: Office, I mean, I think that's just an open question.
[15:55] Speaker 1: One of the interesting things that I see happening in
[15:58] Speaker 1: the beginning of Trump's second year is that he is
[16:01] Speaker 1: really willing to break Republican orthodoxy and go after populist
[16:06] Speaker 1: economic ideas. He called Elizabeth Warren earlier this.
[16:10] Speaker 2: Week contexted with may or Mum Donnie.
[16:12] Speaker 1: Yeah, he didn't do it, but he thought about raising
[16:15] Speaker 1: taxes on millionaires. He has thought about sort of capping
[16:18] Speaker 1: credit card interest payments. And so the thing that I
[16:22] Speaker 1: am looking for for the next three years is Trump
[16:24] Speaker 1: already really changed Republican's approach to trade, let's say, and
[16:29] Speaker 1: now they think about trade totally differently, and Democrats left
[16:32] Speaker 1: some of those policies in place. And so how much
[16:35] Speaker 1: does Trump's populist agenda, which is sometimes populist and sometimes
[16:40] Speaker 1: actually not, how much does that sort of end up
[16:43] Speaker 1: changing the whole conversation about economic policy. Because when I
[16:47] Speaker 1: first came to Washington in twenty eleven, you know, people
[16:51] Speaker 1: of both parties were concerned about, you know, taxes, but
[16:53] Speaker 1: they were also really concerned about the deficit. And now
[16:56] Speaker 1: it's like the things that the real policy issues that
[16:59] Speaker 1: I see in Washington as being really the kind of
[17:03] Speaker 1: anchors of an economic agenda are the cost of housing.
[17:06] Speaker 1: What's going to happen with AI, What's going to happen
[17:09] Speaker 1: with electricity bills. You know, things shift based on what
[17:12] Speaker 1: people are concerned about, and so for me, I'm just
[17:15] Speaker 1: really curious to see how Republicans take sort of some
[17:19] Speaker 1: of these populous threads that Trump appears really open to.
[17:22] Speaker 1: How do they deal with them moving forward. Republicans are
[17:25] Speaker 1: not really the party of lower taxes and less regulation anymore.
[17:28] Speaker 1: They still like those things, but there's a lot of
[17:31] Speaker 1: different things in the mix, and it's unclear to me
[17:34] Speaker 1: what the party will take as their platform moving forward,
[17:37] Speaker 1: and I think that's going to be one of the
[17:39] Speaker 1: most interesting things to watch over the next three years.

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