President Donald Trump has responded to expert's fears over America heading for a recession following the US economy having shrunk in the last three months.
According to data supplied by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the gross domestic product (GDP) has declined at an annual rate of 0.3 percent in the first quarter of this year.
First-quarter growth was slowed by a surge in imports as companies in the United States tried to bring in foreign goods before Trump imposed massive tariffs.
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The January-March drop in GDP, which is the nation’s output of goods and services, reversed a 2.4 percent gain in the last three months of 2024.
Imports grew at a 41 percent pace, the fastest since 2020, and shaved five percentage points off first-quarter growth.
Consumer spending also slowed sharply to just a 1.8 percent growth from 4 percent in October-December last year, while federal government spending plunged by 5.1 percent in the first quarter.
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Forecasters surveyed by the data firm FactSet had, on average, expected the economy to take out 0.8% growth in the first quarter, but many expected GDP to fall.
Financial markets also sank on the report.
Now, taking to Truth Social, President Trump has replied to the figures and has cast blame upon former POTUS, Joe Biden.
"This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s," he penned. "I didn’t take over until January 20th. Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers.
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"Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden 'Overhang.' This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other.
"BE PATIENT!!!"
The figures have come as Trump’s global trade wars have disrupted business, with him having placed tariffs up to 245 percent on China which, in return, has placed a levies up to 125 percent on US imports.
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But the report wasn't all bad, as it outlined how business investment rose by 21.9 percent. And a category within the GDP data that measures the economy’s underlying strength rose at a healthy 3 percent annual rate from January through March, up from 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024.
This category includes consumer spending and private investment but excludes volatile items such as exports, inventories and government spending.
The surge in imports – the fastest since 1972 outside Covid-19 economic disruptions – is likely to reverse in the second quarter, removing a weight on GDP.
For that reason, Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics forecasts that April-June growth will rebound to a 2 percent gain.
Topics: Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Truth Social, Politics
Joe Yates