2026-05-13T04:00:50.951Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/13/politics/trump-economy-inflation-iran-gas-prices-analysis
美国人正在向唐纳德·特朗普传递一条紧急信息：他们正身处困境，并将此归咎于他的政策。
但这位曾凭借共情美国腹地民众对褪色美国梦的不满而建立起强大政治运动的总统，如今似乎对国家的经济痛苦充耳不闻。
他另有优先事项——比如一场耗资290亿美元且仍在增加的战争，许多民众将自己的财务困境归咎于这场战争。
这位总统沉迷于耗资不菲的遗留项目，比如扩建白宫大型宴会厅，以及将一座纪念亚伯拉罕·林肯和乔治·华盛顿的地标建筑改造成他高尔夫度假村那样的天蓝色泳池风格。
与此同时，特朗普正等待接收一架全新的豪华空军一号——这架飞机由卡塔尔赠送，但需用纳税人的资金进行改装。而一座高耸的凯旋门项目刚刚启动，该建筑将在他卸任后俯瞰华盛顿特区。
特朗普非但没有对许多民众的艰难处境表示同情，反而在周一晚间发布了一篇冗长、充斥着怪异、虚假和侮辱性内容的社交媒体长篇大论。
当数百万美国人正艰难负担每月食品杂货账单、支付住房费用和购买汽油时，这种铺张浪费显得冷酷且脱离现实。而特朗普仍不断沉浸在“太阳王”式的作派中。
周二，这位总统表示：“在与伊朗谈判时，我不会考虑美国人的财务状况。”他坚称自己唯一关心的是防止伊朗伊斯兰共和国获得核武器。
当一名记者请他解释白宫宴会厅不断上涨的造价——他目前正要求国会为该项目拨付数百万美元的安全升级资金——时，总统勃然大怒。“我把宴会厅规模扩大了一倍，你这个蠢货，”他咆哮道。
本月早些时候，特朗普回击了民主党人对民生问题的批评，称正是他们引发了这场危机。“他们编了一套狗屁倒灶的鬼话，”他补充道。
周一，特朗普吹嘘他的政府“正在大幅压低物价”。数小时后，政府发布的新数据显示，三年来美国人的工资首次未能跑赢通胀。物价按月上涨0.6%，同比上涨3.8%——达到2023年5月以来的最高水平。这意味着任何工资增长都会被不断上涨的物价迅速吞噬，美国人整体变得更穷。
这些并非抽象的数字。美国人不仅在日常生活中感受到了更严重的经济痛苦，还将其直接与特朗普联系起来。周二发布的一项最新CNN/SSRS民调显示，77%的美国人——包括大多数共和党人——认为他的政策推高了自己所在社区的生活成本。
这位总统在经济问题上的支持率低至惊人的30%，仅26%的美国人认可他应对通胀的表现。75%的美国人表示，伊朗战争损害了他们的财务状况。经济问题上的不满情绪已达到70%，这表明部分共和党人、民主党人和无党派人士都对特朗普感到愤怒。
逻辑和政治历史表明，选民将在11月的中期选举中因这一政绩惩罚总统及其共和党。仅仅两年时间，特朗普在2024年用来攻击民主党对手乔·拜登总统和卡玛拉·哈里斯副总统的民生武器，如今却成了现任政府的诅咒。许多选民曾寄望特朗普能缓解他们的经济压力。最新数据和民调显示，他未能兑现承诺。
特朗普近乎刻意且自我伤害的冷漠背后的原因更令人费解。并非白宫没有试图让他关注这一问题。当局曾安排特朗普外出发表民生相关演讲——但他对为其撰写的讲稿嗤之以鼻。总统旨在传递经济信息的椭圆形办公室活动，常常演变成即兴发挥，谈论那些他似乎更在意的话题。
今年4月，在一场医疗负担能力活动上，特朗普不着边际地谈起他将在东翼旧址上修建的宴会厅。特朗普确实推出了旨在降低处方药价格、提高住房负担能力的重大举措。只是他不愿谈论这些。
特朗普在过往竞选活动中是一位高效的经济宣传员，他编造了一个国家被将美国就业岗位转移到中国的外国人剥削的反乌托邦故事。没有哪位现代政治家比他更关注全球化的负面影响，以及政治领导人未能帮助那些被抛下的群体的问题。
然而，特朗普向来更像一个攻击型政客，而非共情者。他不善应对批评和质疑。作为一名商人，特朗普习惯强调积极面，为产品打造理想化形象。他将经济描述为正迈入全新“黄金时代”的说法，往往更像是他理想中的状态，而非现实。但选民并不买账。消费者信心本月跌至新的历史低点。
在显著韧性的美国经济中，也有一些特朗普可以拿来宣扬的亮点。尽管经济学家担忧就业市场陷入停滞，但4月的就业增长好于预期。由于今年总统的“宏伟”国内政策法案，许多美国人收到了比预期更高的退税，这笔意外之财也为经济提供了刺激。消费支出依然强劲。
但总体而言，美国人情绪低落。
特朗普似乎对经济真实状况视而不见的另一个原因，可能是他偏好的经济指标未能反映现实全貌。他经常为屡创新高的股价欢呼，这些股价在很大程度上经受住了伊朗战争的冲击，并为401(k)退休计划提供了支撑。但这种经济安全路径仅对持有资产和股票的美国人有益。飙升的股价极大地帮助了富裕阶层，却让其他人被进一步甩在身后。
而且，特朗普组建的内阁成员都是百万富翁和亿万富翁，他很少有时间与那些因一加仑汽油涨价超过一美元而焦虑的普通人交流——今年汽油价格就出现了这样的上涨。
一些共和党人认为，当霍尔木兹海峡重新开放、被扣押的油轮向市场大量投放原油时，油价将大幅下跌。但分析师警告称，即使伊朗战争结束，汽油价格也需要数月才能稳定下来。那些在加油站花光了工资的美国人无法拿回已经多花的钱。而且没有迹象表明特朗普知道如何让伊朗尽快重新开放霍尔木兹海峡。
共和党议员似乎并不太担心。俄亥俄州共和党参议员伯尼·莫雷诺周二表示，尽管“汽油价格形势严峻”，但他相信特朗普本周的中国之行将有助于解决战争问题并压低油价。
“我认为到劳动节前后，一切都会尘埃落定，”莫雷诺说。
特朗普个人的镀金时代与许多美国人的日常经济现实之间的鲜明反差，本应为民主党提供政治突破口。如今民主党拥有了特朗普曾经拥有的政治优势：将民生作为攻击武器的能力。
特朗普“不考虑美国人经济问题”的言论，是在他辩称阻止伊朗成为核大国才是最重要的议题时说出的。如果特朗普在战争爆发前就让国民做好为国家做出牺牲的准备，并如实说明战争可能持续的时间，这番话会更有说服力。
民主党迅速将这一言论纳入他们的中期选举宣传，这很可能会在竞选广告中随处可见。“唐纳德·特朗普刚刚把藏在心里的话说了出来：他不在乎那些在他的经济政策下勉强糊口的美国人，”民主党全国委员会通讯主任罗斯玛丽·贝格林说。“特朗普让工薪家庭的经济生活苦不堪言，汽油、食品杂货和医疗保健价格飞涨，工作越来越难找。”
民主党去年在弗吉尼亚州和新泽西州的州长选举中大力宣扬民生议题并赢得选举。但他们尚未出台能够切实缓解生活成本压力的政策。
CNN/SSRS民调显示，在生活成本、帮助中产阶级和通胀等问题上，民主党比共和党更受信任。但在每一项受测试的议题上，都有超过30%的美国人——包括一半或更多的无党派人士——不信任任何一个政党。这表明高通胀的阴影和未能在民生问题上说服选民，仍在阻碍民主党在2026年和2028年的选举中表现。
当拜登政府告诉国民通胀只是暂时现象时，选民根据自身生活经历得出的判断让他们并不相信。事实也确实如此。特朗普的混淆视听或许同样令人难以信服。
总统在经济表现不佳上遇到的问题，与他在伊朗战争问题上遇到的问题如出一辙。
惨淡的现实意味着他无法仅凭口才摆脱政治困境。
Trump’s gilded indifference ignores America’s growing economic pain
2026-05-13T04:00:50.951Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/13/politics/trump-economy-inflation-iran-gas-prices-analysis
Americans are sending Donald Trump an urgent message: They’re hurting and they blame his policies.
But a president who built a powerful political movement partly on channeling heartland grievances over the faded American dream now seems deaf to the country’s economic pain.
He has other priorities — like a $29 billion and counting war that many citizens blame for their financial troubles.
The president is fixated on extravagant legacy projects like a huge White House ballroom and making a landmark that reflects the greatness of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington look like the sky-blue pools at his golf resorts.
Meanwhile, Trump is awaiting delivery of a luxury new Air Force One — gifted by Qatar but adapted with taxpayer cash. And survey work has just started on a towering triumphal arch that would loom over the capital after he’s left office.
And rather than showing sympathy over tough times for many citizens, Trump spent Monday night posting a long screed of bizarre, false and insulting material on social media.
This excess feels like a callous optical error when millions of Americans are having a tough time affording their monthly grocery bills, paying for housing and buying gasoline. And Trump can’t stop doubling down on his sun king act.
On Tuesday, the president said, “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation” when it comes to negotiating with Iran. He insisted he cares only about preventing the Islamic Republic from getting a nuclear weapon.
When a reporter asked him to justify the rising price tag for his White House ballroom — for which he’s now asking Congress for millions in security upgrades — the president blew up. “I doubled the size of it, you dumb person,” he bellowed.
Earlier this month, Trump lashed out at Democratic criticisms over affordability, saying that they’d caused the crisis. “They got one good line of bullsh*t,” he added.
On Monday, Trump boasted that his administration was “getting the prices down big.” Hours later, new government data showed that for the first time in three years, Americans’ wages are no longer outpacing inflation. Prices rose 0.6% on a monthly basis to 3.8% — the highest level since May 2023. This means that any wage increases are quickly eaten up by rising prices, and Americans are left poorer overall.
These are not just abstract numbers. Americans are not only feeling more economic pain in their daily lives; they are connecting it directly to Trump. A new CNN/SSRS poll released Tuesday found that 77% of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, say his policies have increased the cost of living in their own community.
The president has a stunning career low 30% approval rating on the economy. Only 26% of Americans approve of his handling of inflation. And 75% of Americans say the Iran war has hurt their finances. The fact that dissatisfaction on economic matters is reaching the 70% range suggests that some Republicans, as well as Democrats and independents, are angry at Trump.
Logic and political history suggest that voters will punish the president and his Republican Party for this record in November’s midterm elections. In just two years, affordability — the weapon that Trump wielded against Democratic foes President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 — has become an incumbent’s curse. Many voters turned to Trump to alleviate their economic pressures. Latest data and polling suggests he has failed to deliver.
The reasons for Trump’s almost deliberate and self-harming indifference are harder to fathom. It’s not like the White House hasn’t tried to focus him on the issue. It has sent Trump out on the road to talk affordability — but he’s mocked speeches that are written for him. The president’s Oval Office events meant to hit an economic message often degenerate into improvisational riffs on things that seem to matter to him more.
In April, at a health care affordability event, Trump waxed away about the ballroom he’ll build in the hole left by the East Wing. Trump has major initiatives designed to lower the costs of prescription drugs prices and to make housing more affordable. He just won’t talk about them.
Trump has been an effective economic messenger in past campaigns, weaving a dystopian tale of a nation ripped off by foreigners who sent American jobs to China. No modern politician has focused more on the negative impacts of globalization and the failure of political leaders to help those left behind.
Yet Trump has always been more of an attack dog than an empathizer. He doesn’t respond well to criticism and questioning. As a salesman, Trump is used to stressing the positive, to creating an idealized version of a product. His depictions of the economy roaring into a new “golden age” often seem like a picture of things as he’d like them to be, not as they are. But voters aren’t buying it. Consumer sentiment fell to fresh record lows this month.
There are some good spots in the remarkably resilient American economy for Trump to highlight. Job growth was better than expected in April, even if economists worry that the employment market is frozen. Many Americans got a bigger-than-expected tax refund thanks to the president’s “big beautiful” domestic policy bill this year, a windfall that also gave the economy a stimulus. And spending has remained strong.
But on the whole, Americans are feeling gloomy.
Another reason Trump seems oblivious to the real state of the economy may be that his preferred metrics do not reflect the breadth of reality. He often cheers record-breaking stock prices, which have largely weathered the impact of the Iran war and have provided a boost to 401k plans. But this route to economic security only helps those Americans who have assets and stocks. Soaring equities prices disproportionately help the better-off, leaving others further behind.
And Trump, who picked a Cabinet of millionaires and billionaires, rarely spends much time with people who might panic when gas rises by over a dollar a gallon, as it has done this year.
Some Republicans argue that oil prices will plummet when the Strait of Hormuz reopens and captive tankers flood the market with their product. But analysts warn that the cost of gasoline will take months to stabilize even if the Iran war ends. Americans who’ve seen their paychecks drained at the pumps won’t get back the extra cash they’ve already spent. And there’s no sign the president knows how to get Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz soon.
Republican lawmakers don’t seem too worried. Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno said Tuesday that while the “gas price situation is tough,” he believes Trump’s trip to China this week could help resolve the war and bring prices down.
“I think by, call it Labor Day, it’s all in the rearview mirror,” Moreno said.
The damning contrast between Trump’s personal gilded age and the daily economic realities of many Americans ought to provide an opening for Democrats. The party now enjoys the political advantage that Trump once had: the ability to use affordability as a cudgel.
Trump’s remark about not considering Americans’ economic problems came in the context of his argument that what matters most is preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power. This would be more convincing had Trump steeled citizens for the need for national sacrifice before the war and been realistic about how long it could last.
Democrats quickly built the comment into their midterm election pitch, and it’s likely to be ubiquitous in campaign ads. “Donald Trump just said the quiet part out loud: he doesn’t care about Americans who are struggling to make ends meet in his economy,” said Democratic National Committee Communications Director Rosemary Boeglin. “Trump has made the economy a living hell for working families, with prices for gas, groceries, and healthcare skyrocketing, jobs becoming harder to find.”
Democrats ran hard on affordability in winning gubernatorial elections last year in Virginia and New Jersey. But they are yet to break through with policies that would materially ease the cost of living.
The CNN/SSRS poll showed that Democrats are more trusted than the GOP to handle issues including the cost of living, helping the middle class and inflation. But on each of the issues tested, more than 30% of Americans — including half or more of political independents — trusted neither party. This suggests the specter of high inflation and failure to convince voters on affordability still hamper Democrats heading into 2026 and 2028.
When the Biden administration told the country that inflation was transitory, the evidence of voters’ own lives meant they didn’t believe it. And they were right. Trump’s obfuscation may be just as unconvincing.
The president has got the same problem with his economic underperformance that he has with the Iran war.
Bleak reality means he can’t just talk his way out of a political hole.
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