Trump blames Biden for economy as pressure on tariff policy builds

Businesses have warned that higher costs will likely be passed on to consumers, and the president claimed that families may need to spend less as negotiations continue. However, Trump has also continued to blame Biden as his economic policies begin to take shape.

“I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy because he’s done a terrible job,” Trump told NBC News’s Kristen Welker on Meet the Press. He later stated that he takes “responsibility for everything.”

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“But I’ve only just been here for a little more than three months,” he said.

Republican GOP strategists told the Washington Examiner that presidents normally blame their predecessors for stubborn problems encountered in the White House.

“I think it’s politics for the party in power to blame the party who was in power for their woes, and it’s politics for the minority party to blame the majority,” said Matt Dole, a GOP strategist based in Ohio. “Biden blamed Trump for a bad economy, and Trump is going to blame Biden for a bad economy, or whatever economic problems exist, and it’s politics to sort of play that blame game instead of having an earnest discussion about real solutions.”

Even after leaving office, Biden has blamed Trump for handing him a failing economy when he won the presidency during the 2020 election, when the COVID-19 pandemic was still ravaging the nation.

“Think of what we’re left with. We left with a circumstance where we had an insurrection,” said Biden in an appearance on The View, bashing Trump. “We had a circumstance where we were in a position that … the pandemic, because of the incompetence of the last outfit, end[ed up with] over a million people dying.”

Biden also claimed that Trump’s obsession with him was because “I beat him.”

Trump allies have also taken to repeatedly slamming Biden, claiming that his actions on the border and elsewhere have hindered Trump’s ability to bring economic prosperity to the nation.

“There’s certain parts of it that are going to be fixed quickly, and certain parts, they’re going to take more time,” said Jason Miller, a senior adviser on Trump’s 2024 campaign. “And so when you take a look at, say, the border, for example, President Trump was able to fix what Joe Biden broke, largely by putting his previous policies back into place.”

“But the damage that Joe Biden and [former Vice President] Kamala Harris did to the economy will reverberate for a long time,” Miller continued. “And it’s tougher to have the same immediate impact, because the damage that the Democrats did was so powerful.”

“Biden [attacked Trump] for four years straight. I didn’t know there’s a time limit,” Ford O’Connell, a GOP strategist based in Florida, said about Trump’s attack on Biden. “Basically, he did all the way up to the day he left for the helicopter.”

Trump also faces criticism after the economy shrank at a 0.3% annual rate in the first quarter of 2025, the first time since 2022 that the economy has contracted since the pandemic.

The president took to social media once again to blast Biden at the time: “This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s. I didn’t take over until January 20th,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers. Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden ‘Overhang.’ This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!” 

He scored a win last week when the administration announced a new framework for a bilateral trade deal with the United Kingdom, the first since the 90-day pause was announced. The U.S. also met with China over the weekend, resulting in another 90-day pause between the nations.

“A very good meeting today with China, in Switzerland. Many things discussed, much agreed to. A total reset negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner,” Trump wrote on Truth Social about the meeting.

A day later, on Sunday, the administration announced a trade deal with China lowering tariffs from 145% to 30%. China will lower tariffs on the U.S. from 125% to 10%.

Democrats, however, are banking that the economic uncertainty will help bolster their chances during this year’s off-year elections and next year’s midterm elections.

Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist, claimed that Trump blaming Biden is “not going to sell.”

“Americans have already turned the corner from Biden, Trump, and so it’s a pointless excuse,” Bannon said. “My guess is every time he says that, it just makes things worse for himself.”

A CBS News/YouGov poll at the end of March showed that 55% of participants said the Trump administration was focusing too much on tariffs, 42% said Trump’s policies had made them worse economically, and only 23% said they had made them better economically.

That same survey reported that 38% said Biden’s policies were more responsible for the inflation rate, compared to the 34% who said it was Trump’s policies.

The poll is likely a sign that the administration hopes Biden will continue to receive the blame as it hammers out more deals with trade partners.

Trump’s “aggressive” economic policies stand out in contrast to those of Biden, former President Barack Obama, and former President George W. Bush, said Dole.

Trump “gets the right to see if they’re going to work. Now he also has to put up with the political fallout if he announces tariffs, and the stock market crashes,” he continued. “But that’s a reaction in the moment. I think he gets a time to see if these things are going to work.”

“They’re going to put it off on [Biden] until they get the economy exactly where they want it,” said a Republican with close ties to the White House.

Trump slammed Biden on Monday as he signed a new executive order slashing prescription drug prices to match prices set in foreign nations.

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The president blamed Biden for abandoning a Trump-era policy from his first term that attempted to renegotiate drug prices under Medicare but was struck down by a federal judge. To make the message clear, staffers set up a chart next to Trump that read “Biden’s bad drug price deal.”

“Took people a little while to understand a very complicated system, but Joe Biden, without any knowledge of what he was doing, terminated the policy and then pretended to negotiate under a new system,” Trump said, once again indicating that he would continue to attack Biden no matter what.