Donald Trump claimed victory on the economy after 12 months back in office on Tuesday, declaring it to be the “greatest first year in history” as many Americans express alarm over the cost of living.
In a stream-of-consciousness speech at the Detroit Economic Club, the US president delivered his gold-tinted view of how the economy has fared on his watch. Prices were down, he claimed, despite official data showing otherwise, and productivity was “smashing expectations”.
Even as he touted achievements during the first year of his second term, Trump has started to acknowledge concerns over affordability across the US, with November’s midterm elections creeping closer. The White House has moved to roll out a series of policy proposals in recent days that aspire to address affordability.
“We’ll go down as the greatest first year in history that nobody’s ever had, just based on the numbers,” Trump said in Michigan, citing inflation and GDP data that showed price growth had stabilized, and the economy grew at a higher pace at the end of 2025.
Inflation has come down slightly since the fall, but remains significantly above typical levels. While GDP growth unexpectedly surged last summer, it came amid a turbulent year for the US economy. Annualized inflation went down to a four-year low in April at 2.3% before crawling up to 3% by September. GDP contracted in the first quarter of 2025, for the first time since 2022.
The US labor market, which Trump didn’t touch on in his speech, had a particularly volatile year – its weakest since the pandemic – as the unemployment rate edged up to a four-year high.
Trump fired the federal government official in charge of labor statistics in August, hours after data revealed jobs growth had stalled.
On Tuesday, however, he extolled official data which he argued was without comparison. The numbers had been “unbelievable”, he said.
Wall Street continues to trade near record highs – but Trump claimed the “real stiff Fed” was holding back the stock market. “They kill every rally,” he said. “You have a good quarter, and they want to kill it because they’re so petrified of inflation.”
Trump continues to wage an extraordinary campaign to control the Federal Reserve, which he has so far unsuccessfully tried to pressure to lower interest rates. Most recently, Jerome Powell was placed under a criminal investigation over testimony he gave on renovations at the central bank’s headquarters.
In response, Powell called the investigation pretext, noting that it followed the central bank’s decision to set “rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president”.
Trump has claimed he did not know about the investigation.
The widespread backlash his administration has received for going after Powell did not stop the president from lobbing fresh attackson the Fed chair during his speech on Tuesday. Referring to the end of Powell’s term in May, Trump said: “The jerk will be gone soon.”
Trump’s rosy assessment of the economy is far from universally shared. Twice as many Americans believe their financial security is getting worse than better, according to a Harris Poll for the Guardian last month.
Trump deflected responsibility for economics challenges on to his predecessor, Joe Biden. “We inherited terrible growth, and we inherited the worst inflation in the history of our country,” he said.
While inflation peaked at 9.1% in 2022, during Biden’s tenure, by the time the former president left office, inflation was hovering at about 3%.
Trump’s wide slate of tariffs, which caused a major stock sell-off last spring, caused significant economic turbulence in 2025. Though the market swiftly recovered, many of Trump’s tariffs remain either paused or in legal limbo.
But according to Trump, tariffs have been an economic success. “The Trump tariffs have delivered us trillions of dollars of new investment, unprecedented new partnerships,” he claimed.
Though the supreme court is scheduled to rule soon on the legality of his 10% baseline tariff and his slate of so-called reciprocal tariffs, Trump suggested he would not be giving up his tariff strategy anytime soon, regardless of a ruling. “We’ll figure something out if we don’t win, but we should win,” he said.
Trump also claimed that the recent US action in Venezuela set the stage for increased energy production, and would ultimately bring down prices, especially for donuts.
“When gasoline gets to be $1.99 a gallon, everything comes down,” he said. “The donuts come down, the truck that delivers the donuts, the stove that makes the donuts, the whole thing it all comes down. And it’s coming down much faster than anybody can even believe.”
While refusing to concede that any of his policies have increased the cost of living, Trump listed a string of policies policies designed to tackle affordability concerns – including plans to ban large institutional investors from buying single-family homes, purchase $200bn worth of mortgage bonds, and get credit card companies to cap interest rates. Of the White House’s efforts to bring drug prices down, he argued: “On that alone, we should win the midterms.”
The president intends to speak more about upcoming housing policies at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos next week, he said.
