Business
Trump’s Economy at One Year: Food Prices, Stock Market and More
President Trump campaigned in 2024 on promises to “end inflation,” bring back manufacturing jobs and deliver an economic boom. A year after he returned to the White House, he has yet to deliver on those pledges. Still, there has been progress in some areas, and the economy has proved surprisingly resilient.
Here are eight of the promises Mr. Trump made as a candidate, and where things stand after his first year back in office.
Food Prices
Prices are down for a few specific grocery categories, like eggs, but are up sharply in others, like beef. Overall, food inflation has slowed significantly since peaking in 2022, but it has actually picked up somewhat since Mr. Trump returned to office — December saw the biggest one-month increase in grocery prices since 2022.
Mr. Trump often went even further on the campaign trail, promising to “bring down the prices of all goods.” Economists say that was never credible — and, indeed, outright declines in prices, known as deflation, are generally a sign of a deep economic slump. But they say inflation might have cooled more this year if Mr. Trump hadn’t imposed tariffs on a broad range of imported goods.
Gas Prices
Gas prices have fallen under Mr. Trump, though not to the sub-$2 level that he promised on the campaign trail. The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline was $2.78 in early January, according to the Energy Information Administration, down from just over $3 a year earlier. Gas prices hit a record high of more than $5 a gallon in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but had fallen significantly even before Mr. Trump returned to office.
Energy experts generally say presidents have little control over the price of oil. The major factors driving the recent decline, including robust domestic oil production, were in place long before Mr. Trump returned to office, although his trade policies may also have played a role by leading to lower forecasts for global growth. Still, prices at the pump are the lowest they’ve been in nearly five years.
Electricity Prices
Campaign rally in Asheville, N.C., Aug. 14, 2024
“Under my leadership, the United States will commit to the ambitious goal of slashing energy and electricity prices by half, at least half. We intend to slash prices by half within 12 months, at a maximum 18 months.”
Hasn’t happened
Unlike gasoline, the electricity market is extremely regional, with different parts of the country paying sharply different prices for power. On average, however, residential electricity prices in December were up 6.7 percent from a year earlier, and have risen far more in some areas.
Power prices are being driven in part by rising demand from the data centers used to train and run artificial intelligence models. That has created a political liability for Mr. Trump, whose administration has embraced the A.I. boom. Rising electric bills were a major issue in gubernatorial races last year, and are expected to feature heavily in midterm campaigns this year.
The Auto Industry
U.S. auto production peaked in the mid-1980s and has fallen steadily since then. That decline showed little sign of reversing during Mr. Trump’s first year back in office. Globally, U.S. carmakers have lost ground to foreign competitors, particularly Chinese companies specializing in affordable electric vehicles. Employment in the automaking sector has fallen by about 28,000 jobs in the past year.
Manufacturing Jobs
Campaign speech in Savannah, Ga., Sept. 25, 2024
“This new American industrialism will create millions and millions of jobs, massively raise wages for American workers, and make the United States into a manufacturing powerhouse like it used to be many years ago.”
Hasn’t happened
Manufacturing employment was roughly flat in Mr. Trump’s first few months back in the White House, but has now fallen for eight straight months. Wage growth for rank-and-file factory workers also slowed in 2025.
Mr. Trump’s supporters say it will take time for his trade policies to translate into factory jobs. But critics note that investment in factory construction, which should respond more quickly to policy changes, has also fallen.
Stock Market
NRA event in Dallas, May 18, 2024
“We are a nation whose stock market’s continued success is contingent on MAGA winning the next election.”
So far, so good
Mr. Trump’s first year was a wild one for the stock market. At one point last spring, the S&P 500 closed down nearly 18 percent from its peak, narrowly avoiding the 20 percent drop that is the conventional definition of a bear market. But despite several other jittery moments, stocks ended 2025 up 16 percent, making it a strong year.
Some of the ups and downs were the direct results of Mr. Trump’s policies. Stocks fell more than 10 percent in two days in early April after Mr. Trump announced tariffs on nearly all U.S. trading partners. They rallied by nearly as much when Mr. Trump rolled back many of those tariffs a few days later.
But the driving force behind the market gains was investor optimism about artificial intelligence. Companies tied to the A.I. boom saw their stock prices soar, even as some other sectors lagged. That increasing concentration has fueled concerns that the bull market could be vulnerable if A.I. proves to be a bubble.
Tariff revenue
Campaign rally in Juneau, Wisc., Oct. 6, 2024
“We will use the hundreds and billions — it’s really trillions, OK, but we’re going to use the hundreds of billions — of tariff dollars to benefit American citizens and to pay off debt because we have to start paying off debt.”
Some progress
The U.S. Treasury collected a record $264 billion in tariff revenue in 2025, more than three times the total in 2024. In November, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the tariffs would bring in about $2.5 trillion in revenue through 2035, about half as much as the corporate income tax. That assumes the tariffs remain in place, however — the Supreme Court is considering a legal challenge that could invalidate some of the duties.
Even if tariffs remain in place, the debt will continue to grow because tariffs won’t fully offset the lost revenue from the tax cuts that Mr. Trump signed into law last year. That bill will add $3.4 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Trade deficit
As a candidate, Mr. Trump promised his tariffs would discourage imports and encourage companies to shift production back to the United States, shrinking the trade deficit. In his first months back in office, the opposite occurred: The trade deficit exploded as companies rushed to import goods to get ahead of tariffs.
Imports dropped off sharply once Mr. Trump’s trade policies took effect, narrowing the deficit significantly late in the year. But imports could pick up again once companies sell through their inventories, and there has been little evidence of companies moving production back to the United States in a major way.
China is a somewhat different story. The U.S.-China trade deficit peaked during Mr. Trump’s first term and has declined since then, as both the Trump and Biden administrations imposed tariffs and other restrictions on trade with China. But some Chinese companies are routing trade through other countries to avoid U.S. duties, making it hard to estimate exactly how much imports from China have fallen.
Job cuts are hammering the tech industry as companies ramp up investments in artificial intelligence.
This week, San Jose-based tech company Cisco said it was cutting fewer than 4,000 jobs or less than 5% of its workforce. Cisco announced the layoffs the same day that the company reported that it grew its revenue to $15.8 billion and net income to $3.4 billion for the third quarter ending in April.
Cisco Chief Executive Chuck Robbins told employees in an email that he’s “confident” that the company will “win in the AI era” but that requires “focus, urgency, and the discipline to continuously shift investment toward the areas where demand and long-term value creation are strongest.”
“This means making hard decisions — about where we invest, how we’re organized, and how our cost structure reflects the opportunity in front of us,” he told employees in the email, which was published on Cisco’s website.
Cisco provides products and services in areas such as networking, cybersecurity and remote work.
Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, a professional social network that people use to apply to jobs, is also laying off workers.
Reuters, citing two people familiar with the matter, reported on Wednesday that LinkedIn was laying off 5% of its staff or roughly 875 people.
“As part of our regular business planning, we’ve implemented organizational changes to best position ourselves for future success,” a LinkedIn spokesperson said in a statement.
In a memo published on Business Insider, LinkedIn Chief Executive Daniel Shapero told employees that the cuts would impact its global business organization, marketing and engineering teams. The company, he said, is also focusing on operating “more profitably.”
“We need to reinvent how we work, with agile teams focused on our highest priorities, and by shifting investments toward areas such as infrastructure to fulfill our mission and vision over the long term. This requires hard prioritization and tradeoffs,” he said in the memo.
Amazon, which said in January it was slashing 16,000 jobs, is also making cuts in its selling partner services team. The company didn’t say how many people were laid off.
“We regularly review our organizations to ensure we’re best set up to deliver on our goals. Following a recent review, we’ve made the difficult decision to eliminate a relatively small number of roles in our Selling Partner Services team. We don’t take decisions like this lightly, and we’re committed to supporting affected employees with transitional health care, a separation payment, and outsourced job placement services,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement.
The cuts come as other major tech companies this year, including Meta, Block, Oracle and others, lay off thousands of workers.
Cloudflare and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase have also recently announced job cuts. Cloudflare’s job cuts included laying off 224 people in its San Francisco headquarters, a notice to the California Employment Development Department shows.
Some tech companies, which are also selling AI-powered products, are saying that workers can accomplish more with fewer people by using AI to generate code and complete tasks. Others have cited restructuring and cost-cutting to offset the billions of dollars they’re spending on AI infrastructure.
Global mergers are not typically on the agenda of a New York City mayor. But Mayor Zohran Mamdani is weighing in on a proposed deal that he says would financially harm many of the city’s immigrants.
In a letter, Mr. Mamdani urged the New York State Department of Financial Services to block Western Union’s proposed $500 million acquisition of International Money Express, a firm that sends money transfers from the United States to Latin America.
The April 24 letter, which The New York Times obtained, argues that a combination of the companies, both large players in New York City, could lead to higher fees and worse service for customers.
Western Union and International Money Express, known as Intermex, operate retail locations where recent immigrants transfer money, often to relatives in their native countries. These remittances, which total billions of dollars a year, are a vital resource for immigrants who do not have access to traditional bank accounts. Across the United States, remittances have been increasing as immigrants have sent home as much money as they can before they may be deported.
“Remittances are a crucial lifeline for New Yorkers and their communities abroad,” Mr. Mamdani wrote in the letter. He added that the deal “would further strain the already challenging economic circumstances facing New York City’s immigrant communities.”
The deal, announced in August, has been expected to close in mid-2026, subject to approval from authorities including the Justice Department and the nation’s state financial regulators.
In a response to Mr. Mamdani’s letter, Western Union told the Department of Financial Services that the deal would “ensure that accessible and affordable” services remained available for New York City immigrants by helping it compete against online only rivals.
Western Union said it was “committed” to retail remittances, adding that they now account for roughly 60 percent of its revenue.
“Failing to support the combination would merely create the illusion of greater competition by undercutting the ability of Western Union and Intermex, as a combined enterprise, to continue to provide, improve and innovate their services at retail locations,” the company said in its response.
It also said the Department of Financial Services was the only state regulator that hadn’t approved the deal.
In a statement on Wednesday, Western Union said that it was “engaging constructively” with the department as part of the review process and that “we remain confident in the transaction and our ability to meet all regulatory requirements.”
Intermex did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Semafor earlier reported Mr. Mamdani’s letter.
Mr. Mamdani’s role as an antitrust enforcer may be limited, given the relatively few deals that require state or local approval. But one of his influential advisers has a background in bringing a progressive lens to mergers and acquisitions. Lina Khan, the chair of the Federal Trade Commission in the Biden administration, was co-chair of Mr. Mamdani’s transition team after his election in November and remains an outside adviser to him.
By voicing his objection to the Western Union deal, Mr. Mamdani is drawing attention to another issue of affordability, which was a central tenet of his campaign and remains a focus of his fledgling administration, whether the topic is the cost of rental housing or World Cup tickets.
A regional Coca-Cola manufacturer will shut down a plant in Ventura after over 100 years in production.
Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling will close the plant on July 10, the company announced in a recent state filing.
“We regularly assess our locations, products and services to ensure we can continue driving sustainable growth and innovation across our business,” a spokesperson for Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling told SFGate.
Employers must submit a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN notice, to alert employers, state and local officials at least 60 days before major layoffs. The initial notice was submitted Friday.
A total of 85 employees will be affected by the closure, according to the notice. Seventy-eight of them will be reassigned to other facilities, and the rest will be able to apply for open roles at other Coca-Cola plants, a company spokesperson told SFGate.
Operations from the Ventura plant will be transferred to other Southern California facilities.
A spokesperson for Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Coca-Cola shut down a Bay Area plant in American Canyon in late December. That closure affected at least 45 workers, according to the WARN notice. Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling also shut down its Salinas location in June.
Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling is a subdivision of Reyes Holding, which manages major beer and drink distributors and McDonald’s largest global distributor. Reyes Holding began distributing Coca-Cola in 2015 and officially formed Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling in 2022.
The company runs 22 manufacturing centers in California, including two production and distribution centers in Los Angeles. The company operates 50 facilities across 10 states.
-
Health3 minutes agoWill Her Daughter Be Safe at Pali High as It Rebuilds From LA Wildfires?
-
Culture15 minutes agoJudith Barnard, of Best-Selling ‘Judith Michael’ Fame, Dies at 94
-
Lifestyle21 minutes agoThe Family Branding of Sean Duffy’s Road Trip Reality Show
-
Education27 minutes agoUniversity of Chicago Makes Tuition Free for Families Making Under $250,000
-
Technology33 minutes agoUse this map to find the data centers in your backyard
-
World39 minutes agoNon-Jewish professor says he was fired for calling out Hamas supporters in online post
-
Politics45 minutes agoJordan grills Soros-backed DA Descano in heated spat over soft-on-crime policy: ‘This is almost laughable’
-
Health51 minutes agoExperimental obesity drug outperforms traditional weight-loss treatments in early research