The effect of a bad policy doesn't necessarily end when the policy does. The economy has inertia so some effects, such as inflation, are self-reinforcing and need active undoing even when the policy is relaxed.
At least on the US tariffs thing, congress can put Trump back in his box and revert to normalcy any time it wants to; the threat of stagflation might make it do that. The previous stagflation incident was more driven by outside forces.
I've honestly wondered this too. But we cannot obey in advance. If they're going to try and take it from us, then there should be a fight every step of the way. That means our cynical perspectives, as right as they may be, could lead us into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I tell myself if there weren’t going to be elections or if the admin had a sure fire way to compromise them, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to push through redistricting in every single state there’s a Republican-controlled state house/senate.
I think it's likely that if there was a rapid reversal, with Congress taking away the power to mess with tariffs and making it clear that it was permanently gone, there'd be some damage, but things would largely go back to normal. Not enough time has really passed for things to change _that_ much; many of the tariffs aren't _actually_ in place yet.
I have some bad news. It's already some 8 months too late for "rapid".
> Not enough time has really passed for things to change _that_ much
Here in Brazil we are in a mini economic boom because every single country is willing to pay a premium on anything that didn't come from the US. The EU is shutting up internal racist and protectionist dissidents (strong on their 2 largest economies) so that they can diversify from you. Most of the world is discussing independent payment systems... Nato countries are organizing to defend against the US and China and Russia are promising military protection to Latin America.
I wonder if things changed that fast when WWI started, but it absolutely never changed that fast in my lifetime.
I'm European, not American. I think that if given strong guarantees that Trump had been declawed, the EC would be happy enough to return to prior arrangements (though probably move ahead with the Mercosur deal and other trade treaties at an accelerated pace, granted).
The world has seen how unreliable the US is. Its not even just the tarrifs, its the tarrifs applied at random, based on how happy the Don is. The world has seen the "checks and balances" don't exist, a populist leader can do whatever they want for any reason and has no accountability.
In this case, there are laws which he claims allow him to do what he's doing (some disagree, and that's moving through the courts, though with the current Supreme Court who knows). Those laws _can be revoked_, though. The meme that congress is powerless against him is not really entirely correct.
The supereme court seems quite happy to do whatever the president wants through the one-two punch of fake emergency declarations and shadow docket decisions...
