GDP is anemic. Inflation persists. When does Trump's 'winning' start?
Editor’s note: The above graphic represents data from Q1, 2026.
Yesterday Q2 GDP number came in at an annualized, anemic rate of 1.5%, down from 2.1% in Q1 and below expectations.
How South Dakota fared won’t be known for a while, but you can see from the graphic above that we didn’t do so well during Q1.
Overall, the Trump economy has been sluggish and uncertain.
Inflation remains a bugaboo and it isn’t likely to go away, so my question is, when does all that Trump-inspired ‘winning’ start? And what about inflation that was supposed to begin going down on day one? When does that happen?
Apparently everything is on hold because of Iran. This war Trump started – remember when it was supposed to be over in four weeks? – is a persistent headwind to the economy and things don’t seem to be calming down. I’ve lost count of how many times Trump has declared victory, yet the fighting continues and the Strait of Hormuz remains a chokepoint for the huge amount of oil that travels through the Persian Gulf.
From an economic perspective, Trump’s venture into that part of the globe has been a disaster.
An end doesn’t seem to be in sight . . . and as to a matter of another endless Trump-induced pain, there’s the matter of tariffs.
The president’s strange fixation on tariffs has much to do with the persistent inflation that has characterized Trump’s current term. I’ve noted here before that our tariff-obsessed president has done much to harm America’s farmers, but unfortunately for the rest of the country, his failure on the inflation front extends to every one of us.
On the plus side the stock market is holding on to gains made since Trump was inaugurated, but it’s a qualified plus. More and more it looks like the large amounts of spending on developing artificial intelligence are supporting the market. Nothing against rallies in the stock market, but as a long-time investor and floor trader (I was a market-maker on the Chicago Board Options Exchange for slightly over a decade), I’d rather see more broadly based support for the averages.
Meantime, I still wait for some of Trump’s campaign utterances about his brilliant economic policies to materialize.
Could that possibly happen once the war in Iran is over, or is there another milestone event that might be the catalyst for Trump’s promised boom in the economy? If there is, when will we see the fulfillment of his commitment? After filling up my gas tank to the tune of seventy-five bucks on my way home from the grocery store with a sackful of expensive food items, I’m inclined to think the answer is “maybe never.”
John Tsitrian is a businessman and writer from the Black Hills. He was a weekly columnist for the Rapid City Journal for 20 years. His articles and commentary have also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post and The Omaha World-Herald. Tsitrian served in the Marines for three years (1966-69), including a 13-month tour of duty as a radioman in Vietnam. Republish with permission.
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