What if Trump Had Coasted Through His Second Term?
He could have golfed or gone to the beach for four years
Here is a question that I can’t stop wondering about: What if Donald Trump had decided to just coast through his second term as president?
After all, he’s nearing 80 and was already going to be in the history books, no matter what he did or didn’t do in his second term. And by winning the last election he made all of his legal problems disappear; Trump will almost surely never face another trial or the threat of incarceration.
Not to mention that he campaigned last year on improving the economy and ending illegal immigration, and both of those things were already happening before he took office.
Just weeks before the 2024 election, in fact, The Economist said the U.S. economy was the “envy of the world.” Trump could have taken that economy and just ridden the momentum. He could have said the reduction in inflation and the strong jobs numbers and the rising stock market were all because of his policies. Most people don’t pay enough attention to the news to know otherwise, so voters would have believed him.
Same with immigration. The number of border crossings were already down dramatically by the end of 2024. Trump could have made a show of beefing up border security and taken credit for a situation that was already improving.
Seriously, he didn’t have to lift a finger, didn’t have to do anything, and he would have gotten credit for all of it.
Trump didn’t have to do the Elon Musk/DOGE thing. Didn’t have to do tariffs. Didn’t have to take a sledgehammer to scientific research. Didn’t have to go after judges and the media and universities. Didn’t have to send immigrants with no criminal record to a prison in El Salvador.
He could have just ... golfed. Yes, I know, he’s already likely golfing more than any previous president (as of today, nearly one-fourth of his days in office have been spent on the links). But he could have done nothing but golfed, while throwing in a few meetings with foreign leaders and some press conferences here and there to brag about the improving economy. His poll numbers might be soaring right now.
Instead, we have this:
The economy actually went backwards in the first quarter of 2025, shrinking by 0.3%. This was after the economy grew by 2.4% in the final quarter of 2024. According to the Wall Street Journal, “the main driver of the first-quarter contraction was Trump’s trade war.
The index for consumer expectations has dropped by 32 percent since January, the sharpest three-month decline in more than three decades.
The stock market was on pace for its worst April since the Great Depression and the worst first 100 days of any presidency in more than a half-century.
And the bond market isn’t on such solid ground either, which might be the scariest proposition of all because if investors stop putting money into Treasuries then interest rates may skyrocket — which would not only impact the cost of car loans and mortgages, but it’d also be considerably more difficult for the U.S. to pay its debts.
And this:
Cargo traffic to U.S. ports is plummeting, which will have a huge affect on truckers and port workers.
It will also impact the availability of goods in U.S. stores. The chief executives of Walmart and Target recently warned the president about a looming economic storm, including empty store shelves and disrupted supply chains.
It’s not just cargo ships that are no longer coming to the U.S., but also tourists. Between declining global perceptions of America and stories of foreign tourists being detained at border crossings, international travel to the U.S. dropped 11.6% in March over the previous year, a development that will cost the economy billions of dollars.
Amidst the chaos and uncertainty, businesses are reeling. Employers are slowing hiring, and some firms are already reducing their workforces: UPS just announced layoffs of 20,000 employees, and numerous automakers have likewise begun paring back their number of workers. Small businesses that have less margin for error are especially feeling the heat.
And then there are the threats to Christmas:
President Trump’s China tariffs are threatening Christmas.
Toy makers, children’s shops and specialty retailers are pausing orders for the winter holidays as the import taxes cascade through supply chains. Factories in China produce nearly 80 percent of all toys and 90 percent of Christmas goods sold in America …
In a Toy Association survey of 410 toy manufacturers … more than 60 percent said they had canceled orders, and around 50 percent said they would go out of business within weeks or months if the tariffs remained.
The president’s response?
In one interview this week, when asked whether voters had signed up for the prospect of higher prices, he said that “[voters] did sign up for it actually … This is what I campaigned on.”
And when asked about stores potentially having empty shelves, he said: “Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”
Funny, I would have sworn that every single post-election survey in November said the number one reason voters opted for Trump over Kamala Harris was anger over high prices.
Then again, empty shelves and inflation might, in the end, be the least of our worries.
What if the U.S. could no longer produce smartphones … or car engines … or computer chips … or MRI machines … or F-35 jets and Tomahawk missiles for the military?
Sound extreme? Perhaps. Until you realize that critical components of all these products rely on rare earth minerals, which China has a near monopoly on processing and exporting. And which China has now stopped exporting in retaliation for this trade war with the U.S.
Why China curbing rare earth exports is a blow to the US (BBC)
China has a powerful card to play in its fight against Trump’s trade war (CNN)
U.S. agencies alarmed by China’s curbs on exports of rare-earth minerals (Washington Post)
Maybe, just maybe, if you’re going to spend 80 years constructing an economic system built on global trade and international supply chains, it’s not the smartest idea to try ripping it all apart in a matter of months?
Food for thought from a century ago. Or, why we have a global trading system.
At the end of World War I, when the victorious Allied forces imposed draconian reparations on Germany through the Treaty of Versailles, the British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted the consequences of weakening the German economy would be the start of another, greater war. In a short book, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, he wrote:
“If we aim at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare say, will not be limp.”
Two decades later, Keynes was unfortunately proven right, when economic travails in Germany were linked to the rise of Hitler and, eventually, the much more destructive World War II. With a little more compassion, cooperation, and foresight from the Allied nations, it might all have been avoided.
In the aftermath of that devastation, Keynes promoted a free trade system for the world, “which will open all our markets to every country, great or small, alike.” The great powers, he suggested, had learned a lesson from the destruction caused by two world wars.
“We know that no escape can be found from the curse which has been lying on Europe except by creating and preserving economic health in every country.”
Creating and preserving economic health in every country. This was the goal that drove the United States at the time to help devise the system of free trade and international cooperation that arose after World War II. It was because of a belief that working for the betterment of all and creating a sense of interdependence was the best way to prevent devastating conflicts from breaking out in the future.
Turns out that free trade and international cooperation really are good for the global economy and are helpful in preventing world wars. Perfect? No, not at all. But at least better than any system anyone had devised previously.
It’s more than a bit ironic, then, that the United States, the author of this global system of laws and trade that exists today, is now the nation trying to tear down that same system.
One wonders what advice Keynes would be giving at the moment. Or if anyone in power would care.
It’s at times like these that one wishes Trump actually had chosen to just golf or lay at the beach or play with his grandkids for the next four years.
Cover image: AI generated.
Normally I poo-poo what if scenarios, but this is a damn good question. Thank you for exploring it.