The magician’s greatest trick isn’t speed; it’s misdirection, dazzling the audience with one hand while the other reshapes reality. The debate over President Trump’s tariffs follows the same script.
Since Mr. Trump announced reciprocal tariffs, the stock market has consumed media headlines. The real news isn’t being told: Mr. Trump’s free market policies are working and making a real impact on working families. Most significantly, inflation is being defeated.
According to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on April 10, the Consumer Price Index fell for the first time in half a decade.
After relentless price hikes, where, under President Biden’s watch, inflation hit a 40-year high and overall inflation clocked in at an annual rate of 21%, the average American family is spending less on everyday essentials, not more. It all happened because Mr. Trump is going after the real driver of inflation: the runaway government printing press and regulatory state.
As Milton Friedman said, inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. It begins in Washington, and that was exactly where Trump started. He and his team launched an aggressive overhaul to eliminate waste, fraud and unneeded programs from the federal government. Billions of dollars are being saved, and progress is tracked daily on the Department of Government Efficiency website. This has enabled the president to follow through on his commitment to bring down inflation, and in less than 100 days, he has already brought it to its knees.
Energy prices, driven by regulations designed to restrict exploration, transportation and drilling, went through the roof during the Biden years and hit record highs. Upon assuming office, Mr. Trump immediately implemented executive orders to end the “war on energy.” Regulations were loosened. Prohibitions were lifted. Exploration was allowed once again. Right before Mr. Trump took office, the average price for Brent crude oil was $79.50. Prices approached $139 a barrel during the Biden presidency. Now, a barrel of oil is less than $60. Lower gas prices mean less money being spent at the pump and more money in your pockets.
The best Mr. Biden could do was blame Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Mr. Trump didn’t point fingers. He rolled up his sleeves and went to work.
The housing market tells the same story. Before Mr. Biden took office, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 2.77%. When he handed the White House back to Mr. Trump, it was 7%. For a family with a $400,000 mortgage, the difference in pay between those two rates is more than $1,000 a month. Now, mortgage rates are dropping again under Mr. Trump’s watch. Many analysts say they will creep back to 5% in the coming months.
Believe it or not, it’s Mr. Trump’s tariffs that caused this. They pushed more investors to buy safe U.S. Treasury bonds instead of stocks. The increased demand for these bonds caused mortgage rates to drop because mortgage lenders use Treasury yields as their benchmark when determining their rates.
Even the financial sector under Mr. Trump is stabilizing and showing economic relief. The Biden administration and its Department of Justice scapegoated payment processors such as Visa for “raising the cost of everything” through debit fraud prevention fees, which amount to a mere 2 cents for a $10 transaction, but Mr. Trump has taken a different approach. Instead of pointing fingers at private companies, his administration has focused on rolling back burdensome financial regulations, dialing down the adversarial tone toward fintech and payment networks, and signaling a return to a market-first approach. Put another way, Mr. Trump pointed the finger the other way at the government, and the early results were astounding.
Entrepreneurs are building again. Companies are hiring. Investment is flowing into sectors paralyzed for years by regulatory uncertainty.
Although critics obsess over stock tickers and sensational headlines, they miss the forest for the trees. Mr. Trump’s economic revival is already showing up in paychecks, gas pumps and mortgage statements. Ironically, it’s the very tariffs the media loves to fearmonger about that are helping make it happen. By pairing targeted tariffs with serious regulatory reform and government restraint, Mr. Trump isn’t causing inflation over the long term; he is solving it, and it is benefiting the people who need relief the most.
• Michael Glassner is the president of C&M Transcontinental LLC. He served as chief operating officer and deputy campaign manager for Donald J. Trump for President Inc. in the 2016 and 2020 campaigns and was a senior adviser on the 2024 campaign.
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