Is there a Trump rebound?

At the end of the day if he ramps up the economy people will be better off and all his sins will be forgiven. If not...he'll properly be vilified.

The Trump Rebound

The 2025 growth revival may be the most underreported story of the year.

By James Freeman, WSJ

Dec. 23, 2025 11:25 am ET

This column noted last month that the economy appears to be cooking. Today brings more evidence that the benefits of the president’s regulatory and income tax reductions are still overwhelming the costs of his trade taxes. In perhaps the year’s most underreported story, Mr. Trump took office during a quarter when the economy was shrinking and in the two quarters since has presided over robust growth.

Today the Commerce Department reports:

Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 4.3 percent in the third quarter of 2025 (July, August, and September), according to the initial estimate released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the second quarter, real GDP increased 3.8 percent.

Cooling investment is a concern, and threatens to disrupt the glorious recent trend of rising U.S. productivity. But for now the American consumer is vigorously consuming.

Not that consumers are happy about the prices they’re paying to consume. Let’s hope that today’s sunny economic report gives the Federal Reserve the confidence to resume shrinking the supply of money until inflation reaches an annual percentage rate of zero.

Last month this column observed:

Letting Americans produce more goods—while not letting Washington produce more money—is the path to affordability. If the president continues to resolve his trade disputes in ways that lessen his tariffs, his regulatory and income tax reforms will take care of the rest and Americans can enjoy an era of prosperity.

Mr. Trump has correctly noted that federal red tape, when cut, becomes beautiful. As in his first term, the president now has a general policy of deregulation that is drop-dead gorgeous. To realize all the growth and productivity benefits of restraining Washington, Mr. Trump should resist big-footing into specific industries with interventions that win applause from Marxists.

But who wants to think about nasty Karl Marx and his central-planning acolytes in this season of voluntary gift-giving when we have such wonderful news about the results of Americans making free exchanges in the marketplace?

Former Obama Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman observes on X:

Depending on how you look at it growth in Q3 was very very strong or very strong or just possibly merely strong.

If merely strong is our worst-case scenario that sounds like a pretty good quarter and let’s hope for many more to come.

Let’s also hope that readers are enjoying a holiday season that is nothing less than very very strong.