Bloomberg / GettyAsk almost all economists and they’ll tell you: US President Donald Trump has risks with the greatest economy in the world.
They say that its prices and repression against immigrants risk a return of the “stagflation” of the 1970s, when a sudden shock of oil caused stagnant growth and a spiral, except that this time, the crisis would be self-inflicted.
The White House has just as constantly rejected these concerns, attacking experts – and, in the case of the statistics of the American office, the licensee.
Questions about how everything will take place has left the American central bank in a state of paralysis, because it awaits data to clarify what is happening before taking a step on interest rates.
But after a few weeks of business updates, data on jobs and inflation, we still don’t really know.
The job market sends clearly disturbing signals.
The creation of jobs was almost nonexistent in May and June, slow in July, and the ranks of discouraged workers are developing.
This August 1 job report sent the stock market dam and Trump to a flesh, which prompted him to dismiss the BLS commissioner.
A few days later, Moody’s analysis economist Mark Zandi said on social networks that the economy was “on the precipice of a recession”.
This is not consensus.
It is sure, the economy has slowed down, increasing at an annual rate of 1.2% in the first half, down from a percentage point compared to 2024.
But consumer spending, despite weakening, remained more resilient than many had provided, despite the examination of exams by certain companies.
Actions, after August 1, quickly resumed their ascending march.
“We continue to have trouble seeing signs of weakness,” said the financial director of Jpmorgan Chase, the largest American bank last month. “The consumer seems essentially well.”
This has hoped that the economy could pass, as it did a few years ago, to a big surprise, despite the highest inflation of inflation since the 1980s and a high increase in interest rates.
On Friday, the US government said that expenses with retailers and restaurants increased from 0.5% from June to July – and that spending in June had been stronger than before.
“Consumers have broken down but not,” wrote Michael Pearce, an American deputy chief economist at Oxford Economics, who predicts a modest expense of expenses in the coming months, because tax reductions and stock market recovery strengthen confidence.
“With the real slow but resilient economy, the labor market is unlikely to deteriorate strongly.”
Challenges remain in the coming months.
For the moment, households have not seen a spectacular rise in the store that could force them to reduce.
Consumer prices increased by 2.7% in July compared to a year ago, the same rate as in June.
But many forecasters did not expect the higher prices to begin to appear before this year, especially after Trump delayed some of his most aggressive price plans before this month.
Price for imported staples difficult to replace, Like coffee and bananas, have already jumped.
The forecasters expect price increases to widen in the coming months, because companies sell pre-tariff shares and increase prices, now that they have more confidence in tariff policies.
This is why the emphasis was on the producer’s prices index, which measures the wholesale prices ordered by American producers before hitting consumers, offering an index to what happens.
He accelerated at the fastest rate for over three years in July.
And worrying, the inflation of consumers and producers show that the rise in prices is not limited to goods, which suggests that stagflation could very well organize a yield.
