The Wall Street Journal has demolished President Donald Trump’s tariff policies in a scathing editorial, denouncing them as “the biggest economic policy mistake in decades.”
In a pointed attack on the president’s authority, the Journal accused Trump of trying and failing to “bully everyone into submission” following his latest attempts to illegally fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
“Mr. Trump thinks he can bully everyone into submission, but he can’t bully Adam Smith, who deals in reality,” the Journal wrote. “Markets know tariffs are taxes, and taxes are anti-growth. The Trump tariffs are the biggest economic policy mistake in decades, and extending the 2017 tax reform and deregulation may not compensate for all the damage.”
Powell has been in Trump’s sights after he refused to comply with the president’s economic diktats, and Trump has been open about circumventing the law in an attempt to oust him.
“I’m not happy with him. If I want him out, he’ll be out of there real fast, believe me,” Trump told reporters on Thursday, shortly before calling the Fed chief a “major loser” on Truth Social.
The Journal argued that firing Powell would be “a recipe for more market uncertainty: “Whose forward guidance should investors follow, Mr. Powell’s or his replacement’s?”
The paper added: “Smart Presidents pay attention to market signals and adapt. The adaptation now would be to negotiate a quick end to the tariff barrage. Claim some trade-deal victories, and call it a day.
“But markets are spooked because they don’t know if Mr. Trump listens to anyone but his own impulses.”
The editorial comes as part of a wider push from the Murdoch media empire to pressure Trump into something resembling normalcy after his tariff policies have reportedly left insiders “freaking out,” Vanity Fair reported.
An April 7 editorial from the New York Post implored the president to “take ‘yes’ for an answer” as it blasted Trump for seeing tariffs as “a money-making opportunity as much as a tool to repair trade imbalances.”
“Mr. President, you have the world in a panic,” the Post wrote. “Get Ursula on the horn, take the ‘zero-for-zero’ as an opening salvo and ask for more. Put your economic team on doing the same for each of the 50 nations begging for relief.
“We’re on Team Let’s Make A Deal,” the paper added.
Fox News has also started to show cracks in its coverage, with the hosts of Fox & Friends begging the president to announce some “wins” from his trade deals and “calm people down a bit,” on Friday while openly wondering “how long the pain is going to last.”
The latest Wall Street Journal editorial follows a number of harsh criticisms from the right-leaning paper, which has become increasingly severe in its takedowns of Trump since he returned to office.
On April 16, the paper accused Trump of “overstepping” his authority after he threatened to revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status over a litany of perceived ideological “violations.”
“Does this mean the English department must hire more Republican faculty or Shakespeare scholars?” the Journal asked. “Must Harvard ask applicants if they support Mr. Trump and impose ideological quotas in hiring and admissions?”
The Journal also previously condemned Trump’s “willy-nilly” economic policies and warned the president that he “would be wise to put his tariff plans on the shelf.”
Trump, for his part, has spoken highly of Rupert Murdoch, who he called a “class by himself” and an “amazing guy” as recently as February.
The post Murdoch Newspaper Calls Out Trump for Making Biggest ‘Mistake in Decades’ appeared first on The Daily Beast.
