Yet, there are enough signs in the data that indicate the worst may be coming to an end, as one of Trump’s most audacious economic gambles is beginning to pay off.

Core consumer price index inflation, the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure, fell to 2.6% in November, its lowest point since the start of Biden’s presidency nearly a half-decade ago. Economic growth in the third quarter of 2025 soared 4.3% at an annualized rate, according to the first estimate by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow forecast conservatively estimates that the economy will grow by another 3% in the final quarter of the year.

In part, liberation from the consequences of Bidenomics is the obvious result of the liberation of the regulatory and deficit-driven zeal of Bidenomics. The federal budget deficit for the first two months of fiscal 2026 is down 19% from fiscal 2025, which in turn was down 4% from the final stage of the Bidenomics experiment in the fiscal year prior. Trump’s executive deregulation has already borne early fruit, and more will be felt as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act goes into full effect over 2026 and beyond.

But the secret sauce pushing economic growth is Trump’s great gamble on international investment in American innovation and artificial intelligence.

Although Trump’s public boasts that he has secured nearly $20 trillion in foreign investments are overstated, the real number is still close to almost half that. Bloomberg estimates that at least $7 trillion of commitments are “real investment pledges,” while another $2.6 trillion are purchase or trade agreements, with more than 80% of the investments dedicated to AI.

The practical benefits of generative AI are littered throughout the Q3 GDP report. EY-Parthenon quantifies the growth in AI investment in the first half of 2025 at 18% and estimates its contribution to the economic growth of the first half of 2025 to be more than a full percentage point. Pantheon Macroeconomics said in a note analyzing the third-quarter GDP print that AI was driving most of the country’s private fixed investment.

Yet not every Trump economic bet paid off. Particularly, his love of protectionism, which cannot restore 20th-century jobs to a 21st-century economy, despite his pledges. By imposing the single steepest tariff regimes on American consumers in 100 years, the manufacturing sector is down 58,000 jobs, and male employment has effectively flatlined since Trump announced the duties on “Liberation Day.”

It all makes for a mixed economic picture, but with serious reasons for optimism. The 4.6% unemployment rate is over a full point lower than the post-war average. And given that nearly a quarter of the workforce is 55 or older, the White House’s mass deportations will only expedite an inevitable collapse of the available prime-age labor force.

This is where AI becomes crucial. The sort of exponential productivity growth proffered by an international AI investment sweep is the only way to produce the caliber of economic growth that vanquishes five years of inflation for good.

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The speculative optimism of AI that has driven the Magnificent 7, the companies that have invested the most in AI, to dizzying heights, has begun to pay off in the form of wildly juiced productivity.

Trump’s AI optimism is no longer mere points on the board of the New York Stock Exchange, now that it’s actually spinning junk into jewels on the nation’s balance sheet. If this gamble continues to pay off, it won’t just save his presidency; it may very well save the American economy’s relevance in the new industrial revolution.