It seems that the US (and maybe the World System here) are in for some shocks from the Trump II Administration. Just yesterday, Trump seems to have imposed strong tariffs on every country in the World-System (except Russia) and countries (such as China) have instituted retaliatory tariffs. It's hard to understand why Trump is doing this: tariffs are against economic orthodoxy and against Republican economic free-trade orthodoxy. Maybe he was asleep in ECON 101 or maybe there is no explanation.
Here's another idea: Trump learned to like the botched COVID-19 Pandemic Response at the end of the Trump I Administration (2017-2021) and decided to impose his own Shock Therapy on the US and the World System. For a needy narcissist, it does get everyone talking about him!
The graphic above shows a time plot of Quarterly US GDP residuals from (2005,1) to (2024,1) produced by the USL20 policy model. The largest shock to GDP during this period was the bungled Trump Administration response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Can we expect another shock like the COVID-19 Pandemic shock from the Trump II Administration? Time will tell...
