Catherine Rampell: Move, Illuminati. The conspiracy against Trump's economy is massive.

When Barack Obama was president and the economic statistics were good, the then candidate, Donald Trump, said they were wrong. When Trump became president and inherited the same statistics, they suddenly became real.

Now that they are turning south, they are apparently once again fake.

Trump, helped by his economic trust of cranks and sycophants, believes that any indicator showing that the US economy might be in trouble must be manufactured. It's all part of an anti-Trump conspiracy, he says, according to reports from the Washington Post, the Associated Press and the New York Times.

And move, Illuminati, because this particular plot is massive.

It's run by the Federal Reserve, the Democrats and the media, of course, say Trump and his Fox News henchmen. But it also includes the entire US bond market, which triggered an alert last week when the Treasury yield curve was reversed (meaning that long-term bonds had lower interest rates than those in the US). in the short term, generally before a slowdown).

The many farmers, retailers, manufacturers and economists also intend to say for more than a year that Trump's tariff burden is mainly borne by Americans, not by China or others. trading partners, and that uncertainty related to trade tensions can cripple hiring. investment and purchasing decisions that we need to keep the economy growing.

The cabal transcends even the borders. In addition to Trump's trade wars, after all, the main risk to the US economy is contagion from abroad. And currently, nine major economies are in recession or about to be in recession.

The White House has reportedly refused to develop emergency plans in the event of an economic downturn because it does not want to validate this "negative narrative". That's, in a nutshell, silly. As other people have made the following analogy, it's like refusing to buy a fire extinguisher, because one fears to feed a "negative story" that might one day face a fire.

The administration has decided how best to manage the risk of a recession, which of course they do not do. personally worried, was through a show of force on television. There, Trump's economic advisers assured the Americans that they certainly did not fear to cross their hearts and hope to die.

The strategy of the White House trade advisor, Peter Navarro, was to deny that the data shows that Americans are paying higher prices for tariffed goods (what we are) and that the yield curve is recently reversed (although this is the case). On this last point, Navarro said that the curve was simply "flat" and therefore did not signal a possible recession. In an almost identical language in all the interviews, he told the audience that he had authority in this case because "he did not write the book on the yield curve" he wrote "several books on the efficiency of the yield curve as an advanced economic indicator."

But what Navarro did not mention is that these books say that "inverted" and "flat" yield curves are usually signs of an impending recession. One of these works, published in 2006, explicitly mocked business leaders for not preparing for the 2001 recession because they had ignored "the grim progression of the yield curve. "which had started with the flattening of the curve.

So, yes, you can also add Navarro in the mid-2000s to the list of anti-Trump conspirators.

Trump National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow also participated in the Sunday broadcasts. For his part, he pretended strangely other disturbing economic data (in this case, consumer sentiment) did not exist. He also repeatedly told viewers, "Let's not be frightened by optimism."

And look, yes, it would not be useful for public officials to go on television and tell everyone to panic, take their money off the market and stuff it under their mattresses. The White House obviously wants to project confidence instead.

But this confidence only convinces if it is credible – because, say, the White House has recognized how its own trade policies contribute to the risk of a recession and is committed to reversing them. Or because he has a competent team in case of recession.

Kudlow's call to optimism feels Peter Pan's meaning: if only we could believe In fairies, we can always save Tinker Bell, even when we send it in a hail storm. If you believe, clap your hands; do not let Tink die!

It's hard to imagine that nervous Americans are really so gullible. Again, we may never have been the audience for such performances. Sure, may be White House collaborators are trying to deceive the public into believing that the warning signs of the recession do not exist. But maybe they're just trying to cheat on their boss.

A frightening plot theory, indeed.