Karl W. Smith, Columnist

Trump’s Economy Is Failing Exactly Where He Needs It to Succeed

Weakness in manufacturing in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan could doom the president’s re-election chances.

October 2, 2019 at 12:00 PM UTC

Karl W. Smith is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. Previously, he was vice president for federal policy at the Tax Foundation and assistant professor of economics at the University of North Carolina.

Say goodbye to Pennsylvania?
Photographer: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP

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When shockingly poor data on U.S. manufacturing was released Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump was ready with his usual response to any bad economic news: He blamed Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell. Increasingly, however, it is getting harder for the president to avoid responsibility for regional weaknesses in the economy — and the effects on his chances for re-election could be devastating.

The current economy is tracking dangerously close to the one that derailed Hillary Clinton’s candidacy in 2016. Regardless of whether the U.S. is headed for a full-scale recession, according to this latest data it has almost certainly entered a sectoral or mini-recession similar to 2015’s. The latest readings of the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturers survey are actually below those of early 2016, and the trajectory is far steeper.