The chaotic start to President Donald Trump’s second term roiled the economy at the beginning of the year, as consumers and businesses scrambled to react to a constant stream of tariff announcements and policy shifts.

The policies, and the uncertainty they created, were enough to push economic growth into reverse in the first quarter. U.S. gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, declined at a 0.3% annual rate in the first three months of the year, the Commerce Department said Wednesday, a stunning reversal from the strong growth at the end of last year.

The first quarter decline was largely the result of quirks in the way economic activity is measured. More reliable data on consumer spending and business investment suggested that growth slowed in the first quarter but didn’t contract.

But while the negative number was misleading, it reflected something real about the way Trump has upended the economy in his first months in office. Consumers raced to buy cars and other goods before tariffs took effect. Businesses did the same with equipment, parts and raw materials, laying in stores for the trade war to come.

Moreover, the first quarter figures were a glimpse at the past, before Trump announced even more sweeping tariffs in early April. That announcement, and the series of escalations and reversals that followed, caused chaos in financial markets and set off a full-blown trade war with China.

Stocks fell Wednesday morning, as Wall Street remained fixated on the effects of Trump’s trade policies. The S&P 500 fell about 2% in early trading.

Trump, in a social media post Wednesday, asked supporters to “be patient” and blamed his predecessor for handing him a bad economy, despite data showing that growth was strong when he took office.

Peter Navarro, an adviser to Trump and an architect of the administration’s trade policy, told reporters that the GDP figures “really should be very positive news for America.”

Few economists agree. While the first quarter figures showed basically solid growth beneath the tariff-induced noise, forecasters widely expect spending and investment to slow in the months ahead, as tariffs drive up prices and uncertainty keeps businesses on hold.

“All of this is going to change,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist for Nationwide, the insurer. “Once everything kicks in, we’ll have a slower economy, the labor market slowing. Hiring has already stalled, and we expect the unemployment rate to start to rise.”

Wednesday’s data did bring some good news on inflation, which cooled in March. The personal consumption expenditures price index — the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge — was up 2.3% from a year earlier, an improvement from the 2.5% growth in February and closer to the Fed’s 2% target. On a monthly basis, prices were flat.

The March data was from before the bulk of Trump’s tariffs took effect. Still, the slower increase in prices will be welcomed by policymakers, who are dealing with competing concerns of slower growth and higher prices.

But it is unclear how long that, too, will last. The longer tariffs are in place, the more pressure businesses will feel to pass along higher costs to customers, feeding into higher inflation, said Sarah House, an economist at Wells Fargo.

“Businesses can absorb some of that cost and try to wait it out and shield their customers for a period,” House said. But if tariffs stay on at elevated rates, “then at some point you have to think about your margins and your overall profitability.”

Americans have become increasingly worried about higher prices as a result of tariffs, leading to a sharp drop in consumer confidence in recent months. Still, there is little sign so far that their dim outlook has translated into a pullback in actual spending.