There’s no reason to believe that President-elect Donald Trump isn’t serious about pushing three of his biggest policy ideas through in the first 100 days of his administration in 2025.

Susie Wiles, his pick for White House chief of staff, has said, “Get it done in the first two years or forget it.” (I’m paraphrasing her advice.)

Trump’s picks for his cabinet and agency heads so far show that he plans to hit the ground running.

And with majorities in both houses of Congress, albeit slim in the House of Representatives, there really aren’t significant legislative road blocks that Democrats can erect.

Yes, I think we can expect another huge tax cut package to extend the tax cuts from 2017, and a set of tariffs on China, the European Union, and other trading partners with duties of somewhere between 20% and 200%, and an effort to deport 11 million illegal immigrants (and maybe a few legal immigrants too.)

And I don’t think there’s any way with those policies for the Federal Reserve to reach its goals of getting inflation down to 2%, of lowering interest rates from levels left from the pandemic emergency, and of keeping the economy strong enough to prevent unemployment from climbing.

Can’t be done. The Fed doesn’t even begin to have the tools to tackle all those challenges at once. And there’s a non-zero and statistically significant chance of a really serious mistake that would take a big bite out of the economy and the prices of financial assets.

Can I tell you why I believe this?

Let’s take a look at the effects of each piece of the Trump agenda.

First, the tax cuts. A huge shot of stimulus as the Federal Reserve is still looking to bring inflation lower. In simple economic terms this much extra cash into the pockets of big corporations, the wealthiest among us, and the average family too increases demand and that puts upward pressure on prices.

In a normal situation the Fed would stop cutting interest rates and would, after some lag, begin to raise rates again. The lesson about how hard it is to reduce inflation once it has been allowed to become established is too recent and too painful for the Fed to consider anything else.

But this isn’t normal situation.

Second, nobody’s sure how badly Trump’s tariffs will hurt economic growth. But everyone agrees the effect will be negative. Throwing up obstacles to trade tends to work that way. The Tax Foundation estimates that Trump’s proposed tariffs would reduce long-run GDP by 0.8%. The Budget Lab at Yale projects that Trump’s tariff plan could reduce U.S. economic growth by 1.4%. A study by the Grantham Research Institute concludes that Trump’s additional tariffs could lead to a reduction in U.S. GDP by 0.64% .But no one really knows because, 1, we don’t know the size of the tariffs or where they will be aimed, and 2, we don’t know how much disruption they cause in global supply chains as companies look for ways to dodge the imposts.

We’d know, from recent experience during the pandemic, that supply cain disruption can lead to rising prices.

Which is on top of the price increases we’d all see from the tariffs themselves as companies pass on the charge from tariffs to their customers. (Trump’s assertion that somehow China and Europe and other exporters would pay is nonsense.) The National Retail Federation estimates that tariffs on various consumer goods could cost Americans at least $46 billion annually.The Peterson Institute for International Economics predicts that Trump’s policies could push inflation rates to between 6% and 9.3% by 2026, compared to an otherwise expected rate of 1.9%. The Budget Lab at Yale estimates that Trump’s tariff plan could increase consumer prices by up to 5.1%. Pantheon Macroeconomics suggests that a 10% tariff could raise inflation by about 0.5 percentage points per year.

You see the impossible choice facing the Fed so far? Raise interest rates to keep inflation under control under the impact of new Trump tax cuts and slow an economy already facing a slowdown because of the Trump tariffs.

And it gets worse for the Fed. Its monetary policy tools–raising interest rates to reduce growth and lower inflation–would have realatively little effect on inflation caused by companies raising prices to offset the costs to them of the tariffs. Unless the Fed was willing to craNk up rates so high that it caused an actual recession deep enough to crush demand. (I’m not sure that even that move would be enough to counter price increase resulting from tariffs.)

And third, deporting 11 million illegal immigrants, if it is actually possible, would result in massive labor shortages and supply chain disruptions in sectors from agriculture–who picks the crops in California and Florida and who works the meat packing lines in Iowa and Kansas?–to construction–who puts the shingles on roofs in the Sunbelt?

Higher labor costs and product shortages and higher prices to consumers.

The American Immigration Council estimates that mass deportation would lead to a loss of 4.2% to 6.8% of U.S. GDP, equivalent to $1.1 trillion to $1.7 trillion in 2022 dollars. That’s similar to the 4.3% GDP contraction experienced during the Great Recession of 2007-2009. The Peterson Institute for International Economics projects that deporting 8.3 million immigrants could reduce GDP by 5.1% below the current baseline by 2028. Economist Stan Veuger at the American Enterprise Institute estimates that ramping up deportations would cut GDP growth by almost half a percentage point

The economic effects ripple out in some unexpected directions. Research suggests that for every 1 million unauthorized workers deported, 88,000 native-born workers would lose their jobs would. The Peterson Institute analysis indicates that a mass deportation of over 8 million immigrants would lower employment by 5.1% below the current baseline by 2028. The housing market would be hit: 1.2 million mortgages are held by households with undocumented immigrants who would be at risk of default. Tax revenues would decline significantly. In 2022, undocumented immigrant households paid $46.8 billion in federal taxes and $29.3 billion in state and local taxes.

And prices would climb. The Peterson Institute for International Economics estimates that deporting 8.3 million immigrants could raise prices by 9.1% by 2028. The New School’s Center for Economic Policy Analysis indicates that mass deportation could potentially lead to an inflation spike of 0.5 percentage points. Even a smaller-scale deportation of 1.3 million people could increase prices by 1.5%.

Step back from the effects on millions of families to a Fed’s-eye view of the economy. Mass deportations would slow the economy and increase inflation.

What I take away from this set of likely policy events is a scenario of higher inflation and slow growth with the Fed’s standard policy tools being essentially useless to reduce inflation–without further slowing growth (and maybe not even then) or to increase growth without adding to inflationary pressures–at a time when stressed global supply chains have a limited ability to respond.

That’s a nasty enough brew.

Higher inflation and slower growth? Yipes.

But you know what really worries me? It’s that someone(s) at the Fed or at the White House or in Congress will decide that the mess is intolerable and come up with a solution that makes it all much, much worse. Rather than admitting that the big policies were a mistake to begin with. Napoleon Bonaparte is usually given credit for saying Don’t reinforce failure. But he wouldn’t have needed to say it if history wasn’t so full of folks who doubled-down rather than admitting error.

Don’t for the moment imagine that if the economy and inflation go as wrong as I think they could in 2025 that there won’t be voices saying, Hey, what if the U.S. issued crypto? Or how about price controls and even higher tarriffs to bring in more revenue and strengthen the dollar?

I’m pretty sure that someone out there will think really outside the box. What if somebody listens?