U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs are taking a big toll on the global economy, according to a former U.S. ambassador to Canada.

“I think we’re in a serious moment because in all the businesses that I’ve been speaking with, they have been telling me that they do not know how to make an incremental business decision based on these tariffs and the inconsistency in which the president is on again and off again,” Bruce Heyman told BNN Bloomberg in a Friday interview.

“[Trump is] ‘Tariff Man?’ This is slowing down the global economy everywhere.”

As a re-election campaign nears, Trump has directed attacks at the U.S. Federal Reserve, calling the institution and its chair Jerome Powell “incompetent” and an “enemy.” Heyman said he thinks these tactics won’t hit home for the voters Trump is trying to sway.

“Most people – average Americans – don’t understand who the Fed is and how that works and how they adjust for interest rates,” Heyman said. “It’s a little bit more nuanced and sophisticated – not that he is – but I think it’s a harder message to grapple in the farmlands and in the manufacturing areas of the country.”

Heyman – who served as ambassador to Canada under former U.S. president Barack Obama from April 2014 until Trump’s inauguration day – said that for all Trump’s claims of economic might, the only thriving part of the U.S. economy at present is the consumer.

“The only thing that’s really holding up right now is the U.S. consumer, and the U.S. consumer is dipping into debt, and extending herself and himself to get through this moment,” Heyman said. “If things keep going the way they’re going, we’re going to slow down the economy, globally, even further.”

He added that targeting these same stretched Americans might be where the Democratic Party can make inroads in its bid to defeat the Republicans in 2020.

“The gap between rich and poor has never been wider,” Heyman said, adding that rising education and healthcare costs continue to plague average Americans who do not benefit from Trump’s tax cuts.

“Yes, the stock market’s up. But, the bottom 50 per cent of Americans don’t own any stocks,” he added. “So, this is a false narrative that is focused on only one segment of the population.”