NBC Refutes Its Own ‘Trump Is In Trouble Due To Manufacturing Recession’ Narrative

Readers should know by now that President Trump’s aggressive trade war with China didn’t start the synchronized global slowdown, but his trade policies have certainly amplified it.

So NBC News, like many other media outlets and even global leaders today, are laying the groundwork, or economic narrative, pinning the slowdown, or manufacturing recession, and or even next financial crash on the president.

NBC’s latest report on the manufacturing recession ripping through Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, outlines how a “protracted and chaotic trade war” led to the downfall of a seven-decade-old factory in rural Kreamer, Pennsylvania, called Wood-Mode, who recently laid off 900 blue-collar workers.

NBC interviews several former employees of Wood-Mode, who gave their sad stories about how the company struggled to make a profit amid “Trump’s protectionist measures and bruising trade war.”

At the end of the article, so far down where most people wouldn’t read, the author chose to lay out the facts from one former employee, destroying the original narrative pinning the company’s financial woes on President Trump’s trade policies. By saying:

“Wood-Mode was having troubles before Trump took office,” said former employee Michele Sanders.

“I don’t think he had anything to do with it [trade war], but I don’t know that he’s helping matters,” she said.

So it wasn’t President Trump’s trade policies that were responsible for Wood-Mode’s demise but rather company mismanagement, competition, and or macroeconomic headwinds that were present before the president took office.

As we’ve noticed recently, corporate leaders, management teams, government officials, and monetary authorities across the world are quickly scapegoating the president’s trade war for their failures. Why not, right?

The ability of the president to regain the economic narrative and correctly place the blame of the manufacturing slowdown and upcoming financial crash on the Fed has yet remained to be seen. It’s unlikely that the president could win such a battle at the moment since everyone and their mother is blaming their issues on the trade war — not the Fed. Tell a big enough lie, and everyone will eventually believe it…

As shown below, growth rates in US manufacturing slowed several quarters before the trade war began.

Also seen in the JPMorgan Global Manufacturing PMI, the world’s manufacturing sector slowed before the trade war started — a common miss by many economists who conveniently blame the trade disputes on the downturn.

So it’s hilarious how NBC criticizes the president for the death of Wood-Mode due to the trade war, but then at the end of the article indicates via a quote from a former employee that the company was already on shaky grounds before the president entered the office.

This type of bias reporting is everywhere — and by the way, it’s creating an economic narrative that is overpowering the Trump administration. It’s likely that the president will get the blame for the next crash — and the Fed will say, “I told you so.”