Back to Trumponomics: Tariffs and tax cuts

IT WOULD not be an exaggeration to suggest that the 2024 presidential election turned on the economy. Roughly 40 per cent of voters said the economy was their top concern, far outstripping any other issue, and the majority of those voters favoured Donald Trump.

The economists may have been saying that the American economy was doing great. And, indeed, Trump would inherit a relatively strong economy with a falling inflation rate from President Joe Biden.

But most Americans disagreed with this assessment, having borne the brunt of high prices and feeling pessimistic about their economic future. Half of Trump voters said those higher prices were the biggest factor in their decision to re-elect the former president and expressed nostalgia for the low inflation and pre-pandemic positive economic conditions of his first term from 2017-2020.