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Sure, the economists were skeptical, but as Donald Trump likes to say, he knows better than the economists. The data is now in. We can see that Donald Trump’s tariffs already provided a boost to growth in the fourth quarter of last year.

The heathens may be skeptical. After all, Trump hasn’t imposed any tariffs yet and he wasn’t even president in the fourth quarter of last year. But the data don’t lie. If we look at the 2.3 percent GDP growth in the fourth quarter, more than a third of this growth was accounted for by a 12.1 percent jump in durable goods consumption, a category that accounts for just over 7.0 percent of GDP.

While we have been seeing a rising stock market and strong real wage growth, that was not a new story in the fourth quarter. The only thing that was new was the prospect that Trump would soon impose big tariffs on a wide range of products. It’s also worth noting that there was no jump in durable goods sales in October, the jump was entirely in the period after the election.

Trump’s tariff threats gave people, who might have been delaying a decision, a good incentive to rush ahead and buy big ticket items before the tariffs hit. We can see this even more clearly if we look more narrowly at some of the obviously tariffable items in the durable goods category.

Real sales of motor vehicles rose at a 13.8 percent annual rate. Sales of televisions and other visual and audio equipment rose at an 18.2 percent annual rate. Sales of computers and information equipment increased at a 20.8 percent and sales of smart phones jumped by 24.3 percent.

There is also some evidence that Trump tariffs are already raising prices. The price index for durable goods increased at a 0.3 percent annual rate. That might not seem like a big deal, but prices for durable goods had been falling for the last eight quarters. Other than the surge in demand driven by fear of Trump tariffs, there is no obvious reason to see this reversal with durable goods prices rising in the fourth quarter.

This looks like a pretty good case that Trump tariffs were already having an effect on the economy in the fourth quarter. The effect will obviously be greater if and when he actually does impose his threatened taxes on imports. We will see much larger rises in prices and consumption of the tariffed items will fall. The decline will be even sharper since the people who moved their purchases forward will not be buying a new car or computer in the first half of 2025.

Donald Trump apparently likes to keep people guessing as to what policies he will pursue, but in the real world, people don’t have time for Trump games. If they think there is a reasonable probability that he will impose some huge tax in a month or two, they will buy before he can impose the tax.

From the standpoint of investment the uncertainty is even worse. No one is going to invest billions of dollars building a factory in a country run by a clown who can raise or lower tariffs based on what he read on social media in the morning. A reality TV show star may not understand this obvious fact, but people with dollars on the line do.