Michael R. Strain, Columnist

Trump Wants to Own This Economy. He Might Regret That.

We'll have to wait and see if his magic wand of tax cuts, deregulation and trade policy works.

September 11, 2018 at 5:23 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).”

Coal miners have a big stake in Trump’s economy.
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

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President Donald Trump yesterday claimed to have a “magic wand” that allowed him to push the economy’s growth rate above an annual rate of 4 percent in 2018’s second quarter. This is one of the president’s more colorful public statements taking credit for the economy’s performance. Such statements are as common as they are overstated.

Trump isn’t alone in exaggerating the effect a president can have on the state of the economy. The public debate often forgets that the economy is shaped by powerful global forces — peace and turmoil between nations, technological advancement, migration, international trade — and by the decisions of millions of households and businesses.