The Wall Street Journal Rings in Trump’s 100th Day in Office With Dire Warning of Failed Presidency

(Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP photo)

The Wall Steet Journal rung in the 100th day of President Donald Trump’s second term by issuing a dire warning and urging him to change course.

In an editorial that acknowledged Trump’s successes on energy production and in confronting the Iranian-backed Houthis in the Middle East, the Journal‘s editorial board suggested that “The President needs a major reset if he wants to rescue his final years from the economic and foreign-policy shocks he has unleashed,” under the headline “At 100 Days, Trump 2.0 Is in Trouble.”

While the Journal took exception with Trump’s approach on a wide variety of issues, including his handling of peace negotiations in the war in Ukraine and denial of due process in some deportation cases, it was especially scathing in its indictment of the trade wars he’s launched on much of the rest of the world, suggesting they “could sink his Presidency.”

“Mr. Trump was elected to control inflation and raise real incomes, but tariffs do the opposite. They guarantee at least a one-time increase in prices on imported goods that will flow through the economy. They portend shortages for consumers, and for businesses that source goods and components from abroad,” submitted the Journal before adding that “It’s a mistake to think the tariff damage is only domestic. The willy-nilly assault on friends and foes has shaken global confidence in U.S. reliability.”

“Voters re-elected Mr. Trump in part because they remembered fondly his first-term economy. But that success owed mainly to his pursuit of conventional GOP priorities like tax reform and deregulation,” it concluded. “This term he is indulging his trade and foreign-policy obsessions, and the early results are negative. He’ll fail unless he heeds the warnings.”

The Journal‘s prediction follows a similarly pessimistic take from one of its columnists, legendary GOP operative Karl Rove, who remarked on Fox News over the weekend that Trump was “in very bad shape.”