U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a rally to mark his 100th day in office, at Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan, U.S., April 29, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
President Donald Trump on Wednesday blamed his predecessor and defended his sweeping tariffs after new data showed the U.S. economy contracting last quarter, while warning that his promised “boom” will “take a while.”
“This is [former President Joe] Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s. I didn’t take over until January 20th,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
“Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers. Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden ‘Overhang,'” he claimed.
“This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!” Trump wrote.
The defensive social media post came less than an hour after the release of a U.S. Department of Commerce report showing gross domestic product fell at a 0.3% annualized pace in the first three months of the year.
It was the first quarter of negative growth since Q1 of 2022.
A separate report earlier Wednesday morning showed that private payrolls rose by just 62,000 in April, far below the Dow Jones consensus estimate for an increase of 120,000.
The weak hiring report from ADP marked the smallest gain since July 2024. It also showed a stark drop in payroll growth from the downwardly revised gain of 147,000 in March.
Markets fell sharply at the open after the GDP report and disappointing corporate results.
The bad economic data could hang over Trump’s meeting with more than two dozen business leaders at the White House later Wednesday. And his blame-casting in response to the reports could trip up his recent efforts to take credit for what he asserts are a slew of positive economic developments.
For example, in a speech Tuesday evening celebrating the 100th day of his second presidential term, Trump boasted that “prices are coming way down,” claiming, “that’s what I’ve done.”
In fact, the latest GDP report showed the personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, sharply increasing by 3.6% in Q1, up from the 2.4% rise in the prior quarter.
Meanwhile, experts have pegged the shrinking payroll numbers and cratering consumer confidence to uncertainty and fear surrounding Trump’s tariff policies.
Trump’s current attempt to shirk responsibility for the economy is a mirror image of his effort to take credit for the stock market when it was on the rise during the Biden administration.
On Jan. 29, 2024, the then-presidential candidate wrote on Truth Social, “THIS IS THE TRUMP STOCK MARKET BECAUSE MY POLLS AGAINST BIDEN ARE SO GOOD THAT INVESTORS ARE PROJECTING THAT I WILL WIN.”
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— CNBC’s Jeff Cox contributed to this report.
