While CEOs and small-business owners were optimistic right after President Trump won the election in November, events since the inauguration have dented that optimism.
The Wall Street Journal reports that increased tariffs and deportations as well as federal workforce reductions have already rattled some boardrooms and markets, dampening growth, at least temporarily.
Although the end goal seems to be an economy with a smaller role for imports, immigrants, and the federal government and a bigger one for private investment, the execution so far has generated intense uncertainty among business owners, workers, and trade partners.
The S&P 500, which rose 5% in the first five days after the election, has since moved sideways. Meanwhile, other surveys indicate that consumer sentiment and small business confidence have declined in February, and Wall Street just experienced its quietest January in a decade for merger and acquisition announcements.
A bright spot in Trump’s policies has been a boom in investment driven by promises of cheaper energy, deregulation, lower taxes, and reshoring. The day after Trump’s inauguration, some of the world’s most prominent names in technology pledged to invest up to half a trillion dollars into building artificial-intelligence infrastructure in the United States.
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