Washington Examiner columnist Tiana Lowe Doescher said President Donald Trump needs to come to terms with the fact that his tariff policy is not “incredibly popular” with voters.
Trump delivered his State of the Union speech on Tuesday evening, roughly eight months before the midterm elections. Doescher said Trump doesn’t want to be “a lame duck” president in his second term, and he has warned that the Democratic Party would try to impeach him if they retake the House of Representatives.
Ahead of these pivotal elections, Doescher said there is a record Trump can run on, but only if he is willing to “ignore the tariffs for a moment.”
“Remember, the tariffs are not incredibly popular to the American people, and they do help with the deficit, they help with the federal spending deficit, not with the trade deficit, which has actually remained really large,” Doescher said on Newsmax2 Tuesday. “Instead, what matters is that affordability, cost of living question, and the fact is on that metric, Trump has been extraordinarily successful.”
Doescher added that Trump inherited a “Biden economy” when he entered office, and “it takes time” to address the last administration’s work and “dig us out of that hole.” Doescher said that consumers in the United States lost an average of 4% of their wages under former President Joe Biden’s leadership.
Trump announced a series of new economic proposals during his State of the Union, including an agreement between the White House and tech companies to have the firms build their own energy sources for data centers across the country.
Trump also pressed Congress to pass a second budget reconciliation package this year, in the hope that it would include tax cuts for American households that were not included in the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
READ IN FULL: PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH
The Supreme Court ruled Friday to strike down Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff slate. Trump described the ruling as “unfortunate” during his State of the Union, but said “the good news” is that “almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made.”
Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, a 10% global tariff by the U.S. took effect on Tuesday. A White House official told the Washington Examiner that the Trump administration is working on increasing the rate to 15%.
