With characteristic bravado, Donald Trump has vowed that if voters return him to the White House, “inflation will vanish completely.”
But most mainstream economists say Trump’s policy proposals wouldn’t vanquish inflation. They’d make it worse. They warn that his plans to impose huge tariffs on imported goods, deport millions of migrant workers and demand a voice in the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policies would likely send prices surging.
Sixteen Nobel Prize-winning economists signed a letter in June expressing fear that Trump’s proposals would “reignite” inflation, which has plummeted since peaking at 9.1 per cent in 2022 and is nearly back to the Fed’s two per cent target.
Last month, the Peterson Institute for International Economicspredicted that Trump’s policies would drive consumer prices sharply higher two years into his second term. Peterson’s analysis concluded that inflation, which would otherwise register 1.9 per cent in 2026, would instead jump to between six per cent and 9.3 per cent if Trump’s economic proposals …