Trump II: 100 days to collapse

The Trump regime II has been an enormous surprise. Trump won on the basis of lowering inflationary prices and enhancing border security. He attracted unexpected votes from women, young black men, and even Hispanic voters.

Trump convinced voters that happy days would be here again. High prices would disappear. The American economic colossus would be unleashed from sticky regulation. The Ukraine war would end in one day. Trans people were to be seen nevermore. But that’s not what happened. The enormous power of the presidency can be abused, but it is quickly undermined by fools.

The revenge tour

In power once again in 2025 to his happy amusement, Trump decided that his reelection was a mandate, not to act as a benign despot, but to launch a revenge tour against all who scorned and hated him. Revenge and fear were not just against liberals and democrats, but an attack on many of the former members of the Trump I administration. The mortal sin was to tell Trump that he really lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden and that his attempts to remain in power, including the Trump-incited attack on the U.S.capital were little more than an assault on U.S. democracy and the Constitution.

Trump II miraculously controlled the House, the Senate, and 6 out of 9 Supreme Court Justices. He stocked the White House with repulsive true believers supporting total executive power. In months, democracy would be a distant memory. Indeed, he was marching forward with billionaires and their corporations bending to his demands. Even major law firms are agreeing to pay millions of dollars to fund Trump’s causes. The regime was able to stop congressionally approved spending, despite laws that make it clear that this is patently illegal. Total power, as Trump mused that he would be a King. He was just a few presidential orders away from total control. He would have a third term and more.

Competency does matter

Donald J. Trump discovered that there are limits. And those limits very quickly appear as a consequence of his manic beliefs that launching an arbitrary and ever-changing global tariff war would become the basis for total global power as nations, one by one, would bend the knee.

Instead, global tariff mania based on concocted AI calculations proved to be catastrophic economically and politically on the global stage. Trump imposed tariffs on an island inhabited only by penguins. The proof is in the pudding. Trump acts as if he has complete power to fire all and any official in the executive branch, despite explicit laws that were passed to protect them from presidential politics. The latest target is Jerome Powell, Chair of the Federal Reserve, who refuses to follow Trump's demands. Trump wants the Supreme Court to override the famous 1935 “Humphrey’s Executor v. United States” to give Trump power over all. Trump understands, out of endless experience, that what the law says bends most of the time to what he wants and needs.

Trump's desires and rants now have consequences. A fool and or a madman is running the economic engine of what was once the global economic leader. As Trump demanded that the Chair of the Federal Reserve submit to Trump’s desires or be fired, the stock market dropped 900 points in a single day after Trump’s pronouncements.

And more to the point is the abject failure of Trump’s tariff lunacy in motion. Trump’s theory was that tariffs, the higher the better, could become an income stream for the administration. Enthusiasm on Wall St. has been muted. With Trump in power since January 20, 2025, the Dow fell from 44,165 to 39,164, a 12% drop. The stock market is not the real economy, but a recession that is almost certainly already here is the pain of the real economy.

Conventional and unconventional economic indices are flashing red. Consumer and business confidence have collapsed. Housing prices in once-hot markets like Florida have collapsed. Exotic dancers who typically earn thousands a day in good times are out of work. Sex workers' income is plunging. Lipstick sales as affordable luxuries are up, and fancy expensive facials are down.

A CNBC survey of business found:

Most companies in the Supply Chain Survey said high costs are the biggest problem in moving manufacturing back to the U.S. If they did so, they would favor automation over workers. Almost 50% said that reshoring more than doubles costs. The majority believe President Donald Trump’s trade war kicked off a global search for low-tariff regimes.
The majority of businesses believe near term, price hikes are coming and consumer demand will decline. 63% believe a recession is coming. JP Morgan Research¹ examining the effect on the U.S. from China’s ever-increasing U.S. tariffs found that “Given the import bill from China, this tariff alone amounts to an enormous $400bn tax hike on U.S. households and businesses before substitution.”

Trump still believes in a 2 billion a day magic tariff number as the basis for eliminating income taxes and telling Congress that his lies are the truth and should be the basis for federal spending.

It will only delay the collapse of the U.S. as a bankrupt entity. Bankruptcy and default were never a problem for Trump. He can keep fooling the suckers for as long as he can. For now, he can raise trillions he does not have from tariff money he does not have and never will. But for now, the books will “balance” in Trump’s neverland.

Reality bites, but not for Trump

Trump predicted with great certainty that 2 billion a day in tariff cash would help eliminate much in the way of income taxation. Trump's taxes began in February. The summary March numbers, the latest available, show $230 million in U.S. customs revenue, or 13% of the 2 billion a day. Somehow, his plans for the budget are sure to enable tax cuts for both rich and poor.

Instead of bringing the world to its knees with his limitless and ever-changing tariffs, globally, both nations and corporations have made deals and established new markets. Canada, for example, has arrangements with the EU on Canadian steel to replace the United States. John Deere, the U.S. tractor company, is moving production of mid-frame skid steel loaders and compact track loaders from Dubuque, Iowa, to Ramos, Mexico. They are also moving mower conditioner production from Ottumwa, Iowa, to Monterey, Mexico. Ford Motor Company is moving Ford Focus production to China and small car production to Mexico, and is working on home automation and robots to increase U.S. production without workers.

China, in the face of ever-increasing Trump tariffs, was not impressed. China completely banned the purchase of Boeing Aircraft, a major market. China will purchase instead planes from Airbus. China raised tariffs on Red State customers providing pork and soybeans, which will damage U.S. farmers. China also bans the export of crucial rare earths.

Economists estimate that only a small decline in China’s 4.5 percent annual growth rate. China is also only cautiously selling U.S. Treasury bonds. China is a major holder, along with Japan and Singapore. Why are the U.S. bond-holding nations being cautious?

Trump has managed to both unleash a significant decline in the stock market and the bond market. That is an unusual accomplishment. For matters of financial manipulation, 3 trillion of U.S. bond debt, much in short-term debt, becomes due in June 2025. To the extent that holders of the U.S. debt sell their bonds will mean a greater rise in interest rates needed to attract buyers. It’s not the premium on the bond that matters. Unless the market price is sufficient, buyers will not come calling. Before Trump, treasuries were regarded as nearly risk-free investments without worries. Now, U.S. Treasuries have become questionable instruments moving toward junk bond status.

If U.S. treasuries become relentlessly more expensive, the portion of U.S. income spent on debt will soar. Bond-holding nations will have the power to destroy the dollar as global reserve currency, leading to economic and political collapse. Perhaps China is biding its time before dethroning the dollar?

Everything that Trump touches, he destroys². Trump is desperate for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates and pump money into the economy, and pretend that adding trillions more debt into the economy is a momentary solution toward ever-rising debt that cannot be paid back.

The U.S. will resemble an insolvent Britain after the Second World War³. In the early 1920s, Great Britain controlled a quarter of the earth’s surface and nearly the same portion of the population. World War II led to enormous debt.

On September 19, 1949, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Stafford Cripps, was finally forced to devalue the pound sterling from $4.03 to $2.80 – an overnight 30% loss of purchasing power. The British pound suddenly lost its global reserve currency status to be supplanted by the U.S. Britain became a recipient of the Marshall Plan assistance.

Domestically, the Labor Party under Clement Attlee from 1945 to 1955 supported social services, founded the National Health Service, and nationalized major industries and public utilities.

Perhaps we will discover an appealing choice for America post-empire after the coming economic collapse. Dropping global leadership becomes a blessing. China is now becoming first among equals and leading the world, along with the EU and the U.S. states like California, to avoid a climate catastrophe. The U.S. post-empire has no need for a trillion-dollar-a-year global war-fighting military.

Coda

Too many things are out of control, including the ability of the Republican Party to stop Trump before the economic and political collapse of the U.S. Reform and renewal are possible. The millions now in the street every weekend carrying homemade signs suggest that the numbers of those discontented will likely spark a mostly nonviolent revolution for the rebirth of American democracy.

The 3.5 % rule⁴ of active participation of people working for systemic change is the almost inevitable key for revolutionary change. The shape of such action is at its earliest stages. But each weekend it grows in strength. The power of a dozen billionaires will disappear in the face of tens of millions of committed citizens.