Oops! Trump recycles article with bad economic news

Donald Trump appears to have reached back into the archives for a favorable headline, reposting a Reuters article from July reporting that U.S. producer prices posted their largest monthly drop in 14 months. The problem, besides the age of the piece, is that the article itself contains plenty of evidence that complicates the message Trump is trying to sell. The June decline was driven heavily by energy, with gasoline producer prices plunging while underlying producer prices were still up from a year earlier. The article also warned that inflation risks remained tilted to the upside, citing rising oil prices and renewed fighting involving Trump's Iran war that threatened to push energy costs higher again. It also mentioned a 'slowdown' in June job growth, a rise in electricity prices, warned of a future rate hike, a slipping dollar, falling U.S. Treasury yields, AI-related price increases for electronics, and 'rises in prices ​for furniture retailing, apparel, jewelry, footwear and accessories,' and price increases for 'hospital inpatient care.' The repost is particularly awkward because Trump campaigned on much more than an occasional monthly decline in an inflation measure. He repeatedly promised that cutting energy prices would bring down the price of everything else, including promising to cut energy costs in half within 12 months. A single month's energy-driven decline does not mean the overall price level has returned to the levels voters were promised, and the Reuters article itself never claimed that it had. By recycling a nearly two-month-old article based largely on a temporary drop in energy prices, Trump may have intended to showcase falling prices, but instead highlighted his lack of attention to detail and his unfulfilled economic promises.