Good morning. It's Saturday, May 31st. We begin this hour with the current state of play of Donald Trump's economy.

When the president returned to office in January, he was eager to impose new tariffs that would be more punishing and expansive than the ones he issued during his first

term. It was one of his top campaign promises, in fact, and during his inaugural address,

he mentioned that he would, quote, tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.

It's not quite how things have worked out. Instead, President Trump has wielded tariffs to bully virtually every country around the world, and in turn, he's lower America's standing in the world, and he's destabilized the American and the global economy.

Remember when he threatened to place a 25% tariff on all imports from Colombia after its president refused to accept two military planes carrying migrants?

That was just six days into his second term. In response to that, Colombia threatened to impose

retaliatory tariffs on American goods. And just the mere threat of those tariffs that weren't

imposed caused the price of coffee to briefly hit a record high. Ultimately, both countries

backed down, but that was just a preview of what was to come. It's been a roller coaster ride

ever since. Six days after that, on February the 1st, Trump signed his first tariff-related

executive order. It placed a 10% tariff on goods from China, 25% on imports from Canada and

Mexico, three of America's top trading

partners. Now, this supposedly had to do with stopping the flow of fentanyl into America. But just

two days later, the White House itself paused the tariffs on Mexico and Canada, which we've been

specific and with which we have specific and broad-ranging trade agreements that Donald Trump

renegotiated himself during his first term. Since then, a number of other tariffs have come and

gone, raised, then reduced, and raised again just last night with little warning. Donald

Trump announced he'll be doubling the tariff on foreign steel from 25% to 50%. This is pretty much how things have been going.

Trump's second term economic policy so far has been unpredictable, inconsistent, and incoherent

without any obvious or sensible goal. It's caused a lot of uncertainty and volatility in the markets,

and many of the White House's actions have been short-sighted at best, which has resulted in some self-inflicted wounds. To justify many of the

...