FILE PHOTO: DJ D-SOL performs during the ‘Safe & Sound’ Drive-In Concert Fundraiser Presented by JAJA Tequila and In The Know Experiences In Partnership with Bumble at Nova’s Ark Project on July 25, 2020 in Water Mill, New York.
Kevin Mazur | Getty Images
President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon should either replace his economist or “just focus on being a DJ,” days after the bank’s economist warned that American consumers will pay for an increasing share of new tariffs.
Trump’s broadside against Solomon — who moonlights as a DJ — came as the president touted the revenue being collected by the federal government due to his tariff policies.
“Tariffs have not caused Inflation, or any other problems for America, other than massive amounts of CASH pouring into our Treasury’s coffers,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
Trump then said, “It has been shown that, for the most part,” companies and foreign governments are paying for the tariffs, instead of consumers.
“But David Solomon and Goldman Sachs refuse to give credit where credit is due,” Trump wrote.
“They made a bad prediction a long time ago on both the Market repercussion and the Tariffs themselves, and they were wrong, just like they are wrong about so much else,” the president wrote.
“I think that David should go out and get himself a new Economist or, maybe, he ought to just focus on being a DJ, and not bother running a major Financial Institution.”
Trump did not name the economist he wants Solomon to replace.
But Jan Hatzius, Goldman’s chief economist since 2011, warned in a research note on Sunday that American consumers will end up absorbing an increasing share of the cost of Trump’s tariffs.
“Our estimates imply that US consumers had absorbed 22% of tariff costs through June but that their share will likely rise to 67% by October if the later tariffs have the same impact over time as the earliest tariffs,” Hatzius and other Goldman researchers wrote.
A Goldman spokesperson declined to comment on Trump’s social media post.
Tariff revenue has surged in recent months, rising to nearly $28 billion in July alone, according to the Treasury Department.
Inflation, meanwhile, has continued to increase, though the latest data showed consumer prices have grown slightly less than expected.
But many economists continue to warn that the full effects of Trump’s tariffs have yet to be felt, and numerous businesses have already said that they will have to raise prices in response to U.S. import duties.