Michael R. Strain, Columnist

Trump Would Hurt Economy by Trying to Restart It

Relaxing lockdowns prematurely would bring chaos that would only delay a rebound.

March 24, 2020 at 4:17 PM UTC

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

Patience, please.
Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

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President Donald Trump seems to think he can restart the U.S. economy by scaling back some of the restrictions on work, commerce and social interaction that have been put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

“America will again — and soon — be open for business,” the president said on Monday. “Very soon, a lot sooner than three or four months that somebody was suggesting. A lot sooner. We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.”