this post was submitted on 01 May 2025
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Economics

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Trump tells business chiefs he needs 'little bit of time' as US economy shrinks (www.bbc.com)
submitted 3 days ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/economics@lemmy.world
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Donald Trump has asked for more time on the US economy as it contracted for the first time in three years, stoking recession fears.

He claimed the figure was misleading because companies had stockpiled imports ahead of his imposition of tariffs.

The US economy contracted at an annual rate of 0.3%, the US commerce department said, a sharp downturn after growth of 2.4% in the previous quarter. It comes as Trump marks 100 days in office, with opinion polls indicating public discontent over his economic stewardship.

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[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 13 points 3 days ago (2 children)

He claimed the figure was misleading because companies had stockpiled imports ahead of his imposition of tariffs.

I mean he's probably right... Except if they were importing ahead of time to avoid the tariffs, you would assume things to either be the same or have a slight increase... Not contracting.

[–] KingGordon@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Maybe it would have contracted more, but the pre-buying made the contraction less severe.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

That's two separate thoughts tho, trump and his supporters can't keep two thoughts in their head at once.

If they pre-bpught to avoid tariffs (unlikely due to little warning) then that's been propping up this quarter. So it would have been worse and will make the transition even worse.

There's no way out of this, and no rational people to save anything. Shits going to be really bad, the silver lining is it's going to get unignorably bad so historically that leads to a FDR type government that actually fixes shit

[–] wise_pancake@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago

He is right on that, I can’t share my source, but I do know for a fact that broadly companies have been stockpiling.

Seasonal industries like fashion are going to be first hit. Manufacturing is already hit. Now that the spring season is running out the apparel industry is going to come into the brunt of tariffs and we’re going to start seeing the pain ramping up through the summer.

Expect big changes in what’s on the shelves soon.