But don't blame Navarro or Powell; it's not like they sold themselves as something other than what they are.
Making appointments merely to troll one's predecessor is something less than smart. Expertise matters, as does the ability to vet your appointees. If the president today is unhappy with higher rates, well, he has only himself to blame. And if China is proving harder to wrestle with in trade negotiations, maybe the president shouldn't have been so quick to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. That deal (remember how great the president is at deals?) would have lined up the U.S. and almost a dozen other nations as counterweights to China and its trade policies.
Actions have consequences, and the undeniable consequences of this president's actions are rates that are higher today than they would otherwise have been and worldwide trade disruption.
To be sure, we can't place all of the blame on Trump for the economic slowdowns in Europe and China, for the chaos of Brexit and other issues that predate his term in office. Much of the unsettled environment was already in place. He was just the spark in the gas-filled room.
My original thesis in 2016 was that investors who were blaming Trump for market volatility were being partisan and unobjective. To damage this stock market, Trump would have had to do a series of things that were ill-advised and counterproductive. As it turns, he has done just that. If a recession occurs in 2020 -- and the current model of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York puts it at a 32% chance in the next 12 months -- a good measure of the blame must go to this president.
Trump reveled in taking credit for the boom he inherited. If the U.S. goes into a contraction, he shouldn't be surprised if the "Trump recession" label sticks.
This column was provided by Bloomberg News.