House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Monday accused President Trump of intentionally crashing the economy to benefit the GOP’s wealthy donors and other well-heeled interests.
The Democratic leader said Trump’s tariffs, which prompted a stock market sell-off and fears of a global recession, have been applied so haphazardly — and done such immediate harm — that no other plausible explanation fits.
“The Trump tariffs, which are a tax on the American people, are so reckless, so un-strategic, so lacking in any sophistication that the only conclusion that one can draw is that Donald Trump and the Republicans are intentionally tanking the economy,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol.
“Is it because, as Donald Trump has indicated, that during tough economic times the rich get richer, and it's a buying opportunity?” he added. “Those are Trump's words.”
Trump has long accused America’s trading partners of cheating U.S. businesses with lopsided trading arrangements, and he has long viewed tariffs as the most powerful tool for leveling those imbalances.
Tariffs run counter to decades of Republican support for free trade, and many in the party have tried to dissuade the president from applying them aggressively in his second term — to no avail.
Last week, Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs on a long list of trading partners — adversaries and allies alike — which quickly sent stock markets plummeting in the United States and beyond. Over two days last week, the sellout eliminated more than $6 trillion in market value in the U.S. alone.
Trump and many of his allies have defended the strategy, saying it will pay dividends in the long term by encouraging international investment and a revival of domestic manufacturing after decades of outsourcing abroad. Over the weekend, Trump said the slump marks an opportune time to jump into the market.
“To the many investors coming into the United States and investing massive amounts of money, my policies will never change,” he posted on Truth Social, the social media company he owns.
“This is a great time to get rich, richer than ever before!!!”
Trump’s critics see the slump very differently, noting that Trump ran his campaign on promises to help working class families pay for groceries, not to create investment opportunities for wealthy international investors.
“There's no rational explanation for any of this — except perhaps that there's some scheme that Donald Trump has publicly eluded to, which is that the rich get richer when the economy collapses because there are buying opportunities,” Jeffries said Monday. “There's no rational basis otherwise to explain the economic carnage that Donald Trump is visiting on the American people.”
Jeffries emphasized that he’s supportive of tariffs when they’re used selectively and benefit American businesses and consumers. But “that's not what's going on right now,” he quickly added.
“This is a reckless economic sledgehammer that Donald Trump and compliant Republicans in the Congress are taking to the economy. And the American people are being hurt,” he said.
Jeffries said that if Democrats regain control of the House in next year's midterms, they would use "every single legislative tool" to roll back any tariffs that are doing financial harm to consumers and American businesses.
