President Donald Trump lashed out Wednesday morning at increasingly dim economic forecasts that have cast his policies in a harsh light and clouded what he has hoped would be a valedictory marker of his 100 days in office.
He has blamed the Federal Reserve. He has expressed anger at what he has described as unfair trade policies of the past. And, more than anything, he has blamed his predecessor.
“This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s,” he wrote on social media Wednesday morning, even though the financial falloff has occurred since he took office and Trump on the eve of his inauguration had pointed to a stock market that had “surged” and called it “the Trump effect.”
His social media post concluded with a message to Americans about the economic policies he has implementing that have rocked the domestic and global economies: “BE PATIENT!!!”
He was reacting after new data showed that the U.S. economy shrank in the first three months of 2025. The contraction marked a stark reversal after nearly three years of solid growth and represented a reaction to many of Trump’s policies. His promised tariffs have compelled companies and consumers to rush to purchase foreign goods, leading to an increase in imports. A drop in government spending has also caused growth to slow.
The new report on gross domestic product, released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Wednesday morning, showed that the economy contracted in the first quarter by an annualized rate of 0.3 percent. It was the first deceleration of the U.S. economy since the pandemic-fueled supply-chain woes of early 2022.
The latest news crystalized several economic forecasts that have warned of a possible recession and have been one of Trump’s biggest vulnerabilities on a topic that won him the presidency for a second time. As president, Joe Biden long struggled to gain credit for positive economic indicators, which Trump exploited with promises of lower prices and a fairer trade system.
Financial markets all dropped Wednesday morning, reversing some earlier gains after Trump’s tariffs had caused a sell-off. And for one of the first times since Trump took office, Democrats began to rally around a consistent message.
“Americans who hired Donald Trump for the economy must be ready to fire him now,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) wrote on social media. “Today’s GDP number shows Donald Trump is running America the same way he ran his business — straight into the ground.”
Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) planned an afternoon news conference at the U.S. Capitol on “the economic pain and chaos,” while former vice president Kamala Harris was scheduled to deliver a critique in California of the Republican who defeated her in the presidential election in November.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) highlighted legislation set to be voted on later Wednesday that would prevent Trump’s tariffs from being implemented. The measure has some Republican support, including from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), but probably not enough to override a threatened veto from the White House.
“One hundred days into his presidency, Donald Trump’s red-light, green-light tariffs are shrinking our economy, with businesses stockpiling imports in anticipation of tariff doomsday,” Warren said. “Consumer confidence has consistently plummeted through Trump’s first 100 days and dropped to its lowest point since May 2020 — as Americans are deeply pessimistic about surviving a cratering economy deliberately damaged by the president.”
Republicans largely defended Trump, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) writing that Trump “has laid out a bold, pro-growth agenda” and that “Senate Republicans are strong partners in helping him achieve it for the American people.”
White House senior trade adviser Peter Navarro on Wednesday put a positive spin on the numbers, saying that most of the dip in GDP was related to temporary impacts of Trump’s tariff policy.
“We had a fairly extraordinary surge of imports that was totally driven by the rest of the world trying to get their products in here before the tariffs took full hold,” he said. “So the great news about that is that’s a one-shot deal. So next time we get the data, that won’t be the case at all. And in fact, it’ll reverse, and that’ll contribute to growth.”
He also pointed toward pledges from several prominent companies to expand manufacturing in America and a possible congressional bill that would lower taxes. And he suggested that declines in consumer and business sentiments were related not to Trump’s policies but to negative media coverage of them.
“The idea that there’s a recession coming should be heavily discounted,” he said. “Because when we take into effect the tax cuts coming and the underlying strength of the economy, then I think all things, all things, are good.”
The White House in recent days has focused on promoting Trump’s first 100 days in office, with a barrage of briefings, interviews and events.
Trump held a rally Tuesday night in Michigan in which he railed against the news media and repeatedly said polls were biased against him. He claimed his approval rating was in the 60s or 70s rather than what most surveys have shown — around 40 percent.
As he has throughout his presidency, he blamed Biden for the economy, for immigration and for not looking better in a bathing suit. Over the course of his 90-minute speech, he mentioned his predecessor two dozen times, at one point polling the crowd on whether they should refer to Biden as “Sleepy Joe” or “Crooked Joe.”
Trump also returned to a theme of blaming Jerome H. Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve, for not lowering interest rates.
“I have a Fed person who’s not really doing a good job,” Trump said. “But I won’t say that. I want to be very nice. I want to be very nice and respectful to the Fed. You’re not supposed to criticize the Fed. You’re supposed to let him do his own thing. But I know much more than he does about interest rates, believe me.”
In an extensive interview with ABC News on Tuesday, Trump was also confronted with the volatility he has injected into the economy, causing concern among analysts and consumers.
“Well, they did sign up for it, actually,” Trump said. “And this is what I campaigned on.”
He said he would continue to remake the global economy, adding that there could be some short-term pain but that he was attempting to make long-term structural fixes that would go beyond the tariffs on China he imposed in his first term.
“You know, I had the best economy during my first term. We had a tremendous economy, tremendous success,” he said. “We were given credit for a great economy. But I said, ‘We have to fix this. Otherwise it’s just not self-sustaining.’”
He adamantly rejected any notion that there would be major consequences from his tariffs, and he maintained that China would “eat those tariffs” rather than significantly escalate costs.
“Everybody’s going to be just fine,” he said. “It wouldn’t have been if I didn’t do this. I had a choice. I could leave it, have a nice, easy time. But I think ultimately you would’ve had an implosion. Our country had inflation that was worse than they’ve ever had it before.”
Trump has also increasingly pointed toward the costs of average goods, including gas and groceries.
“There were plenty of eggs for Easter,” he said. “They were saying, ‘You won’t have enough eggs for Easter.’ We ended — my secretary did a fantastic job on eggs. Groceries are down. Everything’s down.”
