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US president DJT State of the Union Address to Congress Feb 24, 2026. BBC Analysis shows the president going on the offense to take up the issue of illegal migrants, cost of living, and business investment to get the economy to grow. DJT compared the $1 trillion in business investment under Biden over 4 years with the $18 trillion that he had secured in his first year. He said the tariffs were here to stay whatever the Supreme Court decision stated because all the agreements with EU, UK, China, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, other countries will remain in place as all countries want it that way. The president stated that through tariffs he had secured benefits for getting manufacturing back to the US to create jobs and raise incomes. The Big Beautiful Bill also added to business investment through its writeoff in one time for equipment and plant. The oil price per gallon had gone down to $1.85 a gallon at the pump lowering the cost of living and inflation. He pointed out that the economy was strong with low inflation lower than 3%, unemployment at 4% and ecponomic growth in 2025 close to 3% with some quarters exceeding 4-5%. The US ice hockey team attended the event and the Congressional medal of honor was given to soldiers in the Venezuelan helicopter dangerous mission, and to a World War II pilot who was 100 years old. Transgender was shown as an issue with parents shown with their daughter who had suffered from transgender laws that he asked Congress to change. Calling some of this crazy as parents and families were suffering as a result. ...

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DJT's 32% reciprocal tariff on Taiwanese goods including chips is working. When reports under president Biden showed TSMC investing in Arizona it was still a slow process with much foot dragging including articles by TSMC executives about how difficult it was to make in US. Lyrarc commented specifically on this as TSMC founders got their education and training in the US and it sounded a bit too condescending. Now that the Trump administration has its tariffs in place this WSJ report says the factory in Arizona is advancing production by several quarters, and it has started production late in 2024 with quality comparable to TSMC plants in Taiwan. How quickly DJT's approach with tariffs to level playing field and letting Taiwan know it owes defense and its education in semiconductors to the US is working, is shown by this example like others. And the $65 billion investment is now up to $165 billion in the US that TSMC is planning. The extra $100 billion is a commitment made to DJT. TSMC revenue growth is higher now at 30% than 20% it had previously with AI and robotic demand in 2025 so that it needs to make more chips quickly. ...

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Experts at Moody's say that a partial deal with China like the phase 1 deal Mr. Trump announced this week will leave unresolved the fundamental differences in the two countries' economic, political and strategic interests. Mr. Trump suspended a new tariff on Chinese imports set to go into effect in December on mobile phones, laptops and the remaining import products not yet covered by tariffs. Any improvements in relations is seen only as temporary. In the agriculture sector most farmers are taking a cautious attitude. Importers of products such as luggage and other basic consumer products are living with the uncertainty- product quality may deteriorate now that importers cannot pass on a 25% tariff cost.

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Canadian prime minister Trudeau met with DJT at Mar-a-Lago. DJT said Mexico and Canada are not doing enough to stop flow of drugs in particular fentanyl into the US, and undocumented migrants. Trudeau said "when Donald Trump makes statements like that. He plans to carry it out." For Canada many dubious and questionable policies on immigration under Trudeau can be corrected. It has the most at stake as it exports $423 billion of goods to the US and 2 million people are employed in these exports. For a long time Mexico and Canada have remained insensitive to how policies led to harm for the American people, in ways that are unprecedented in American history and since the settlement of the North American continent.

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The Trump administration is set to impose 15% tariffs on $156 billion of Chinese goods including laptops, mobile phones, and apparel, on December 15, 2019. This is in addition to the tariffs already in place on $361 billion of Chinese goods. The new list of goods for the tariffs on December 15 are goods that are made mostly in China. About 87% of the goods on this list are made only in China. If talks fail with China by this week the tariffs will go into effect. WIth this tariff all goods imported from China will have tariffs on the goods imported into the U.S. adding to the difficulties facing the Chinese economy. A recent article in the WSJ shows China is shifting to higher skilled manufacturing and the service sector to maintain jobs growth.

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Under new US trade agreement with Vietnam tariffs are cut 46% to 20%. The  transhipments will still face tariffs of 40% to prevent shipping by China through Vietnam to the US to circumvent US tariffs. 

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India's modernization efforts for ports terminals and logistics looking ahead to 2047- key to Vikshit Bharat Developed India. For the US and EU this is key to the goal of reducing concentration of manufacturing in China. This goal goes beyond the DJT administration tariffs on China of 48%. It is about common sense and reason not to get stuck with importing everything from one country in Asia, not Japan, not China, but spreading the production. The reason this gets concentrated is that one country gets an overwhelming advantage and only state or national policy of US or EU can change that which is what the DJT administration is doing. India is the only nation that has the potential to make this happen over the next 10 years to 2035.

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A 2024 US International Trade Commission report by David Riker of the effects on imports of 25% US tariff shows a 75% reduction in imports and a 5% increase in US prices.  It would lead to large new investments in the US auto industry in different states. Hyundai recently announced a $21 billion investment plan in the US and building of a steel plant in Louisiana. General Motors will increase investments in the US and expand production. Other Japanese companies will make large investments for a presence in the US market.

"A new 25% tariff on U.S. imports from outside of North America would reduce vehicle imports by 73.9%, increase average prices of vehicles in the United States by 5.0%, and increase variable profits from domestic production by 5.2%." David Riker, USITC

 

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Recession forecasts come from economists using obsolete economic theory, not looking at the situation on the ground- continuing this where US lost its industrial base, lost 5 million jobs, tens of thousands of factories, means falling behind to a point where US cannot make comeback as the largest economic power. It is the situation Lincoln faced where between 1830's and 1860 similar to 1995-2025 for three decades the US in one situation saw slavery getting entrenched, and in 2025 sees economic decline getting entrenched. Lincoln's answer was then and it speaks to us now- Fifteen decades ago A. Lincoln stated- "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and we shall save our country." IMF forecast of no US or world recession in 2025-2026. Earlier Chase Bank and other forecasts showed increase in chance of recession. WSJ forecast says 45% chance of recession in next 12 months but also says there was prediction of 60% chance of recession in 2022 and in 2023 which did not happen. ...

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More evidence in Commerce Department trade figures that president Trump's strategy of imposing tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods and renegotiating trade pacts with Canada, Mexico and South Korea was not sufficient to reverse the huge U.S. trade deficit. The international trade deficit in goods and service increased 19% in December from prior month to $59.8 billion. Excluding services that U.S. sells to foreigners such as tourism, intellectual property and banking, the deficit grew to $891 billion the largest on record.

Mr. Trump's tax policy of increasing the fiscal deficit increased growth in the U.S. at a time when the rest of the world economy was slowing leading to higher demand for imports, and the 4 increases in interest rates by the U.S. Federal Reserve helped strengthen the U.S. dollar that pushed up imports.

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A Trump-Vance nomination with its huge tariffs inside a Republican shell with its preference for tax cuts is with a large degree of certainty likely to put America further behind China, slipping even further by a decade. And slipping in renewable energy and in meeting the aspirations of ordinary Americans. Most of the public does not realize that Trump-Vance 60% tariffs and Republican preference for tax cuts over infrastructure spending would create inflation and lack of growth in a Trump-Vance second term. Things would get worse because of the contradictions existing in the choice of tariff preferring Trump in a Republican party that sees tax cuts not infrastructure spending -even when desperately needed- as the answer to every economic problem. Without a clear policy of making the trillion dollar investments in the US economy, in manufacturing, in renewable energy, in chips and science, as it has under Biden the US under Trump-Vance policies would have two serious problems- first it would revive inflation. 60% tariffs on Chinese imports and 10% tariffs on other nations proposed by Trump-Vance would increase inflation. In the absence of the infrastructure investment that Biden has put in place it would create both a lack of growth for the jobs missing that come from infrastructure that is badly needed in a aging dilapidated infrastructure economy, and the inflation that the high tariffs would engineer. The benefits would not be great if China chooses to find other ways to conduct business and continues to keep its currency at levels that promote its exports. Even today Chinese products enter the US through other countries or when China builds factories in the US as Japan has done. The Republican aversion to tackling Chinese industrial challenges in the same way that China does by actively supporting American manufacturers would give China another decade of advantage as America slips even further behind in chips, science and manufacturing. This is the real problem in mixing Trump-Vance to the Republican philosophies on the economy which are not right for this point in time whatever their merits may have been in the 1980's when America was the industrial leader in the world.   ...