Trump’s ‘golden age of America’… is anyone feeling it yet?

Does it make sense any more to compare what Donald Trump says with reality? Because it does not make a blind bit of difference.The US president believes what he spouts is true. Those who know it’s mostly a pack of lies – members of his cabinet, Republicans, Maga – don’t dare tell him it isn’t… and worse, they shout their approval. What good does it do the rest of us to question and quibble? Which is how it was with Trump’s State of the Union address, the first of his second term in office.“Our nation is back – bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before,” proclaimed the president, as he went on to hail “a turnaround for the ages”: “Inflation is plummeting, incomes are rising fast,” he insisted. Odd, then, that so many Americans remain unimpressed with his handling of the economy. In this regard, polls consistently give Trump low marks. The facts say that, yes, inflation is down – but growth has slowed. Only 181,000 jobs were created across the US in 2025, versus the predicted 584,000. Said Trump in relation to the Joe Biden administration: “Their policies created the high prices. We are rapidly ending them.” While it’s true that inflation fell to 2.4 per cent last month, compared with the 3 per cent in Biden’s final year in office, prices were already falling, from a high caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when inflation ramped up globally and in the US peaked at 9.1 per cent. To press home that he, and he alone, is making life more affordable in America, Trump cited a list of everyday groceries. Since taking office, “the price of eggs is down 60 per cent,” he said – but his reasoning may be a little scrambled. This time last year, the cost of a dozen grade-A eggs hit around $8, an all-time average high, when a severe bout of avian flu hit supply and led to shortages. As commercial egg-layers got the outbreak under control, prices came down. (Nobody tell Trump that bird flu is again spreading on US farms…)And then there’s beef, the price of which was “very high [but] is starting to come down significantly”. In fact, prices dropped slightly in January, having climbed 15 per cent in the last 12 months – the ones following Trump’s inauguration. Ground beef, meanwhile, is 72 per cent up since 2020, and has just set a new record high. So when Trump and his speech-writers say the price of beef is coming down “significantly”, it’s a moot point. But then, so much of what Trump said is just that.“Gasoline … is now below $2.30 a gallon in most states, and in some places $1.99 a gallon.” Not according to the American Automobile Association, which puts the average price of petrol in the gas-hungry nation at $2.95 a gallon. In Oklahoma, the average price is $2.37 a gallon – the lowest on the AAA list – which isn’t close to touching Trump’s $2.30.Meanwhile, the Live GasBuddy website is currently reporting that a mere four out of 150,000 service stations are offering petrol at below $2 a gallon – 1 in Oklahoma, 3 in Texas. Another State of the Union boast was that “more Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country”. Again, pass the bag of salt.Yes, 158 million people were employed in America as of last month, according to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics. The population, though, is the largest it’s ever been, at more than 342 million. The percentage of people 16 or older in work was 59.8 per cent in January, compared with 60.1 per cent when Trump became president for the second time. One figure that he chose to ignore? Unemployment, which is now slightly higher than when Biden left, 4.3 per cent to 4.1 per cent. Correction: by the Trump yardstick, surely my “slightly” should instead read “significantly”? One of his more eye-watering statements, in a speech of many, was that “in 12 months, I secured commitments for more than $18 trillion pouring in from all over the globe”. Cue cheering from the faithful. But how so, when even his own White House tracker is citing a total for “new investment in US manufacturing, technology and infrastructure” since Trump became president last January of $9.7 trillion – so around half of his State of the Union tally? Trump devoted much of his 1hr 47min rant to one of his bete noirs to tariffs, or rather his “powerful country-saving tariffs”, the central weapon in his global economic strategy, which were inconveniently struck down by the Supreme Court last week. Four members of the court sat in the front row impassively as he slammed their “unfortunate involvement” and their “disappointing ruling”. He also failed to mention that Harvard University economists have found Trump’s tariffs were responsible for hiking overall US consumer price inflation by 0.92 per cent last year. The problem with set pieces like this is that they don’t get us anywhere. He is speaking to his believers; I, and others like me, are writing for the converted. None of it is cutting through. With the midterms approaching, he will make campaign speech after campaign speech echoing much the same – by November, his “achievements” in office, as he sees them, will likely be yet more outlandish. Trump is a salesman. He is selling himself, as opposed to a new luxury condo complex in Manhattan. It’s no different. Watch those TV series devoted to those flogging real estate in Manhattan, Hollywood or, yes, London, and you see mini-Donalds. As the man said, he, or rather his nation, is “bigger, better, richer and stronger”. That isn’t presidential, it’s estate agent-speak. The structural survey is picking holes. Whether it is ultimately sufficient to dissuade buyers, we shall see.