Paul Krugman is at it again—proving that having a Nobel Prize doesn’t guarantee common sense, let alone an ounce of economic foresight. In his latest tirade, the former New York Times columnist attacked President Trump’s tariff policy, calling it “clearly illegal” and accusing Trump of launching “class warfare against middle and lower-income Americans.” That’s rich coming from a man who’s spent decades writing for an elitist newspaper while being consistently wrong about nearly every major economic development since the 1990s.
President Trump fired back, calling Krugman a “deranged bum,” and frankly, he’s right. This is the same Krugman who famously predicted a global recession the day after Trump won the 2016 election. “If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never,” Krugman wrote back then. Never? The markets proceeded to hit record highs under Trump’s first term, and now, under his second term in 2025, we’re seeing even stronger growth thanks to pro-America trade policies, energy independence, and a revived manufacturing base.
Krugman’s problem isn’t with tariffs—it’s with Trump. His economic analysis has long been infected with partisan bias, wrapped in academic jargon to sound authoritative. But let’s cut through the noise. Trump’s tariffs aren’t “class warfare”—they’re a long-overdue correction to decades of globalist trade policies that hollowed out American industry and shipped good-paying jobs overseas.
The so-called “free trade” era, which Krugman championed, was never truly free. It was a rigged system that allowed China to flood our markets with cheap, subsidized goods while stealing our intellectual property and manipulating its currency. American workers were left holding the bag. Trump’s tariffs are about leveling the playing field—forcing our trading partners to respect U.S. sovereignty and value American labor.
And let’s not ignore the facts. Since Trump reinstated his tariff regime earlier this year, the U.S. manufacturing sector has seen its strongest quarterly growth in over a decade. Wages are up. Domestic investment is up. And after years of being told by “experts” like Krugman that tariffs would cripple the economy, we’re seeing just the opposite. The Dow is breaking records. Unemployment remains at historic lows. Inflation is retreating. This is what winning looks like.
Krugman, meanwhile, is sulking on Substack after abruptly quitting the Times. He’s not a voice of reason—he’s a relic of a failed economic consensus that prioritized Wall Street over Main Street. His latest screed against Trump is nothing more than recycled talking points from the globalist playbook: tariffs are bad, free trade is holy, and anyone who challenges the status quo is a populist demagogue.
But Americans know better. We’ve lived through the consequences of Krugman’s beloved “rules-based international order”—empty factories, stagnant wages, and rising inequality. Trump’s economic nationalism is a direct response to those failures. It’s not about punishing the world; it’s about putting America first.
And let’s address the legal nonsense. Krugman claims Trump’s tariffs are “clearly illegal.” Based on what? The president has broad authority under trade laws to impose tariffs in defense of national security and economic interests. That’s precisely what he’s doing. It’s not illegal—it’s leadership. Something Krugman wouldn’t recognize if it hit him over the head with a copy of his own failed predictions.
At the end of the day, the American people don’t care what a discredited economist scribbles on his newsletter. They care about results. They care about jobs, wages, and a strong national economy—and that’s exactly what President Trump is delivering.
Krugman can keep shouting from the sidelines. The rest of us will be busy rebuilding a nation that works for all Americans, not just the credentialed elites.