Trump's troubled affordability tour stumbles into Georgia | Opinion

President Donald Trump's affordability tour is set to roll into northwestern Georgia on Feb. 19 with a deceitful name for a deceptive mission.

If the White House were being honest here – I know, I know, as if – this would be called the "Believe What Trump Says, Not What You Know To Be True – Or Else" tour.

Trump's approval rating is cratering, in part due to his inept approach to America's economy, aggravated by the slipshod tariffs he impulsively slaps on other countries. But that won't be the story he tries to sell in Rome, Georgia.

A review of three previous affordability tour stops from Dec. 9 to Jan. 27 shows that Trump will likely ramble rhetorically for more than an hour, touching on his immigration enforcement efforts, his dishonest complaints that any election result he doesn't like is proof of voter fraud, and his very real concerns about Republicans losing control of Congress in November's midterm elections.

And, Trump being Trump, he's likely to illogically insist that "affordability" is a Democratic "hoax" to hoodwink Americans into thinking their economy is not soaring, while also claiming Democrats are to blame for America's current economic woes.

Those two notions obviously contradict each other. Trump won't care. But he may also level threats toward anyone telling a story about the economy that contradicts his economic claims.

Americans paid for Trump's tariffs – and he knows it

Consider a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which calculated that Americans paid about 90% of the costs for Trump's tariffs on imports from other countries, through late 2025.

That refutes Trump's absurd insistence that those countries bear the burden of paying the tariffs, rather than passing them along to U.S. companies and consumers. And contradicting Trump on anything is not allowed as his administration accelerates toward authoritarianism.

Kevin Hassett, Trump's National Economic Council director, told CNBC on Feb. 18 that the New York Fed report was "an embarrassment," adding, "The people associated with this paper should presumably be disciplined."

Hassett's threat came one week after Trump threatened the political futures of any Republicans in Congress who vote to constrain his tariffs, while he's also openly fretting about losing the midterms.

CNBC, on the same day the president made that threat Feb. 11, cited new research that found state governments paid about $200 billion for Trump's tariffs from when they were launched in March to November. And Georgia, which coughed up $12 billion of that, was No. 4 in the top 10 impacted states.

The Georgia Chamber of Commerce, in a periodic "tariff briefing" released Jan. 30, expressed concerns about "new trade uncertainty" due to tariffs proposed for South Korea and Canada, because those countries are "among Georgia's top five trading partners and sources of foreign direct investment."

The briefing warned of the potential for higher costs for manufacturers in Georgia and retaliatory tariffs that could harm businesses in the state.

Trump takes his affordability grift to Georgia

Trump will be speaking on Feb. 19 in the congressional district of former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was once one of his most ardent admirers and now is one of his fiercest critics. Greene, a Republican who resigned early in January, has predicted that her party will lose the midterm elections because of economic issues.

In a Feb. 17 social media post, Greene warned that about 75,000 households in her former district had their health insurance doubled or more on Jan. 1 because insurance tax credits expired. She accused the White House and congressional Republicans of trying to "gaslight Americans."

Here, the public record is on Greene's side.

Trump kicked off his affordability tour in Pennsylvania on Dec. 9, mentioning tariffs 13 times. "My favorite word is tariff," he said at one point.

Pennsylvania paid about $6.3 billion in tariffs in nine months last year, according to CNBC's report, landing in the seventh spot for the top 10 impacted states.

Speaking at the Detroit Economic Club on Jan. 13, Trump declared: "The evidence shows overwhelmingly that the tariffs are not paid by American consumers."

The evidence completely disproves that. And Michigan paid $13 billion in tariffs in nine months last year, landing in the third spot for the top 10 impacted states.

But perhaps Trump's most atrocious lie about our economy landed when his affordability tour visited Iowa on Jan. 27, when he bragged about authorizing a $12 billion bailout for American farmers, "because we have so much money from the tariffs coming in."

Trump's tariffs have harmed American farmers. And he expects them to thank him for that.

Trump won the 2024 presidential election largely on the twin issues of immigration enforcement and improving the economy. He's losing support from American voters now on both issues.

Don't expect to hear any of that on the affordability tour's latest stop. With the midterms looming, Trump's misleading messaging is less and less likely to convince Americans that what they know to be true is somehow false.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Translating Politics, here.