The economy grew at an annualized rate of over 4 percent during the second quarter of the year because foreign and domestic companies raced to export as much as they could before Trump's trade war officially hit the books.
Trump's trade war is on the books now and exports have dropped as a result. Our trade deficit exploded to the highest level since Trump was elected during the month of June.
via Reuters:
The U.S. trade deficit recorded its biggest increase in more than 1-1/2 years in June as the boost to exports from soybean shipments faded and higher oil prices lifted the import bill.
The Commerce Department said on Friday the trade gap surged 7.3 percent to $46.3 billion. The rise in percentage terms was the biggest since November 2016. [...]
The government reported last Friday that trade contributed 1.06 percentage points to the economy’s 4.1 percent annualized growth pace in the second quarter.
Obviously, if trade contributed that much growth during the second quarter, and if Trump is doing everything he can to sabotage trade, we should not expect to see that much growth during the third quarter and perhaps not ever again. Trump is going to escalate his trade war.
If you think about it, this highlights how much of self-own protectionism truly is. The only difference between previous quarters and the next quarter will be Trump's trade war and the downsides of it are going to be obvious to anyone willing to look.