Legendary economist Art Laffer admitted on Wednesday he’s terrified of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, though he said he’s hopeful that Trump will reduce them once he secures some trade deals.
In an interview with Axios, Laffer said that Trump’s protectionist policies have ushered in the “most scary, in-flux” economic moment he’s ever seen.
“I don’t know how anyone looking at the facts could argue that protectionism doesn’t create downturns,” he told the outlet, adding, “The more protectionism there is, the greater the downturn. Reducing tariffs and protectionism causes a boom in the economy.”
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Despite the criticism, the Reagan-era economist has been a fan of Trump over the years. He referred to him as “a great negotiator” as well as the “single best president of his lifetime.”
Trump awarded Laffer with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019 for his economic theory – dubbed the “Laffer curve” – that shaped President Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts as well as those implemented in Trump’s first term.
While generally supportive of Trump, the economist has been sounding the alarm over the reciprocal tariffs the president placed on imports from multiple countries earlier this month, before the administration announced a 90-day pause.
“Once you screw around with supply chains, production facilities, all of that, it’s very hard to reverse that,” Laffer told Axios.
He also referred to the tariffs as a “perverse government response” that “is a sure-fire way of causing an economic bust.”
Still, Laffer expressed hope that Trump could make the policy work, as long as he makes good deals and reduces tariffs immediately after.
“You will find out with whether I’m right to be scared or right to be hopeful probably in 90 days — there’s not a lot of time,” he said, referencing Trump’s pause on all tariffs except for those affecting China.
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In an interview with Fox News Channel earlier this month over the 90-day pause, Laffer seemed to express a more optimistic view of how Trump was leveraging tariffs.
“It’s Trump at his very best, Martha,” he said. “You know, I was hoping, and I believed, that he was going to be able to do this – although I always have trepidations ’cause I’m a wuss. I’m afraid.”
Laffer continued, “But he, boy, he knows how to do these negotiations and he’s going to eliminate a very serious problem of all these foreign tariffs, and non-tariff barriers and quotas against us, and we are the freest trade country. And now he’s going to bring ‘em back in and really bring down their barriers to trade. And we’re going to have a much freer trade world.”