Name: Trump praises tariffs in Cabinet meeting as US economy shrinks for first time since 2022 | BBC News
Uploaded: 2025-05-03T00:18:07.000Z
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In a blow to President Trump, the US economy shrank in his first three months in office.

American gross domestic product, a measure of all the goods and services in the economy, dropped by 0.3% from January to March, a sharp fall after growth of 2.4% in the previous quarter.

President Trump has blamed his predecessor, Joe Biden, and said the downturn was nothing to do with his controversial policy on tariffs.

Let's go live to our North America editor, Sarah Smith, at the How damaging do you think these figures are for the Trump administration?

Well, it goes right to the core of the biggest reason why Donald Trump was elected, when he promised to fix the economy and reduce inflation.

And since then, the cost of living hasn't really fallen significantly.

And now we see these numbers saying that the economy is in fact contracting.

So it goes against what he promised to do.

And Donald Trump did return to the US on the 20th of January.

These figures cover January, February, March.

But he says they're not his fault at all.

He's trying to blame it all on his predecessor.

And I have to start off by saying, that's Biden.

And we came in, and I was very against everything that Biden was doing in terms of the economy, destroying our country in so many ways.

Now, of course, the biggest move on the economy that Donald Trump has made is introducing those very high trade tariffs, which he did at the start of April.

But they have affected these numbers, because there was a huge surge of imports into America from families and businesses.

They were trying to import foreign-made goods before the tariff regime kicked in.

So that has affected the figures somewhat.

But we will need to wait until the next quarter to see exactly what impact having imposed those high import taxes is going to have on the American economy.

And meanwhile, the United States and Ukraine are close to finally signing a deal on mineral resources, possibly within the next 24 hours.

It would see the two countries jointly develop Ukraine's mineral wealth.

President Trump says it will be money back for all the aid that America has given Ukraine in its war with Russia.

Well, an earlier version of the deal collapsed after the row in the White House between Mr Trump and Ukraine's President Zelensky.

Live now to John Donnison, our correspondent in the Ukrainian capital Kiev.

After a lot of false starts, it does look like this is going to be signed at last.

Well, certainly that is what the Ukrainians are saying.

The country's economy minister is currently en route to Washington DC to meet with US officials.

And as you say, they are saying the deal could be done within 24 hours.

There are reported to be some last-minute disagreements, so let's wait and see.

But what this deal does is it basically gives America access to Ukraine's oil, gas, energy infrastructure, mineral wealth.

And money from those industries would go into a joint US-Ukrainian investment fund, and then some of that money would go towards paying for Ukraine's reconstruction and also towards paying for American continued military and humanitarian assistance.

Now, there are some who say, critics of the deal, who say it amounts to the US extorting Ukraine.

But I think the Ukrainian government has made the calculation that if America has a bigger stake in the country, it could improve relations and push America to get a better deal in the more important deal for Ukraine, which is, of course, ending the war with Russia.