As President Donald Trump recently refused in an interview to rule out the possibility that his trade policies could trigger a recession — calling the economy a “transition” — economists are debating whether the U.S. is headed for a downturn. Many have raised the odds of a recession, citing troubling indicators such as declining consumer sentiment, rising layoffs and a falling stock market. However, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick pushed back, stating, “I would never bet on recession. No chance.”

Watch the video above as Straight Arrow News contributor David Pakman argues that while he’s not yet predicting a downturn, Trump’s policies are putting the economy at risk and will hurt the average American.

The following is an excerpt from the above video:

But big picture, the American economy is dynamic, and if you get out of its way reasonably so, while maintaining needed regulation, it tends to do at least as well as the global business cycle. The concern now is that Trump’s tariffs, Trump’s gutting of federal programs, Trump’s gutting of all sorts of safety net elements, that it is going to create an unsteadiness and a chaos that will be very bad for everyone involved. I hope that it doesn’t happen.

What else will I be looking at? We will look at job creation, unemployment, stock market level, GDP numbers when we get it. We won’t get Q1 GDP until well into Q2. And in addition to this, it will be interesting to see what happens with the companies considered industry leaders. They will often signal whether they believe things will improve or not by virtue of their hiring and their inventory accumulation.

So you can get a lot more information about this than what you will get on the three letter networks. You’ve got to look for it. But importantly, I don’t think Trump cares one way or the other. He wants to feel like a big boy that everyone’s kowtowing to, and so far, what he’s doing is not good for the average American.