frustrated with the direction of the economy<\/a>. The president\u2019s comments perfectly framed both the political strategy and the stakes for Republicans entering an election season that may well hinge on the state of voters\u2019 finances.<\/p>\nThe latest gauge of the Consumer Price Index, released on Wednesday, showed that goods overall became more expensive last month, rising 4.2 percent compared with a year earlier. That marked the fastest pace since April 2023, and as a result, offered renewed evidence that prices are rising faster than Americans\u2019 wages.<\/p>\n
The acceleration largely stemmed from the war with Iran, which has snarled the world\u2019s energy supply, sending oil and gas costs soaring as a result. That, in turn, has made travel and shipping more expensive, pushing up the price of many products, including some groceries.<\/p>\n
Much as before, though, the scourge of creeping inflation hardly troubled Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a bill signing on Wednesday, the president argued that the U.S. economy had been in strong shape before the war with Iran. He suggested that he had initially expected the fallout from the conflict to be much worse. He later bragged about gains in financial markets, even though major indexes all had fallen by the time he spoke.<\/p>\n
Eventually asked when he expected prices to subside, Mr. Trump predicted that inflation would recede quickly, once the Iran conflict concludes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to come down like a rock,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The comments captured Mr. Trump\u2019s political strategy throughout the war with Iran, an intervention that the president once proclaimed would be over in weeks \u2014 yet now has eclipsed three months.<\/p>\n
Framing the intervention as a national security imperative, he has described the U.S. economy as resilient enough to absorb any blow. He has also promised that any damage would reverse quickly, with gas prices falling rapidly as soon as the war ends.<\/p>\n
Economists are less certain, particularly at a time when the United States and Iran have resumed exchanging fire. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump promised to retaliate in response to the downing of a U.S. helicopter days earlier, a move that could risk another escalation that disturbs the fragile global energy market.<\/p>\n
The White House largely sidestepped those concerns on the heels of the latest inflation report. Instead, it opted only to focus on a subset of goods, including autos, where prices fell last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe at-expectation May C.P.I. report reinforces that, despite temporary disruptions as a result of Iran\u2019s efforts to subvert the free flow of energy, President Trump\u2019s broader economic agenda continues to deliver meaningful results for the American people,\u201d Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump has spent months brushing aside voters\u2019 concerns about the rising cost of living. At one point on Friday, he repeated his claim that the debate around affordability is a \u201ccon job.\u201d He also insisted he had brought inflation \u201cway down\u201d from its pandemic-era highs.<\/p>\n
In an interview that aired Sunday on the NBC program \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d Mr. Trump argued that the country is \u201cdoing great,\u201d as he called on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.<\/p>\n
Broadly, economists expect the Fed to maintain rates<\/a> to keep inflation in check. Further reinforcing that sense, the labor market has remained resilient, after employers added about 172,000 jobs last month, more than analysts had expected.<\/p>\nBut Mr. Trump has continued to insist that interest rates should be significantly lower, swatting away the concern that too-low rates could actually worsen the problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, if inflation comes, and, you know, people live with inflation, but if inflation comes what happens is you stamp it out,\u201d the president said. \u201cBut success can kill inflation just like higher interest rates.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prices jumped in May for the third straight month, leaving U.S. families and businesses to suffer the sting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101,8877,177016,213281,177015,106855],"class_list":["post-696519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-federal-reserve-system","tag-fees-and-rates","tag-inflation-economics","tag-prices-fares","tag-united-states-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}