In Trump’s economic lab, we are the guinea pigs. No wonder confidence is flagging.

But beyond the MAGA base, there are growing signs that consumers, businesses, and markets are getting spooked — raising fears that the uncertainty of Trump’s economic agenda could tip us into a recession.

The latest: Consumer confidence fell for the third straight month in March to its lowest level since November 2022, according to University of Michigan data released Friday.

Meanwhile, small-business optimism, as tracked by the National Federation of Independent Business, dropped for a second month in February, after rising much of last year.

And Wall Street? Investors just endured their fourth — and biggest — weekly loss in a row, with the S&P 500 now down 8.2 percent from its February peak.

Why it matters: Maybe these are temporary jitters. But maybe they’re signs of deeper unease about where the “America First” experiment is going.

When confidence wanes, consumers and businesses are more likely to reduce spending, putting downward pressure on the economy.

“The roaring stock market of the past few years has been central to economic growth. If the sharp declines continue, it could push the economy into recession — and leave Massachusetts vulnerable,“ Evan Horowitz, executive director of the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University, warned in a Globe opinion column.

A closer look: The US economy grew a respectable 2.8 percent last year and unemployment remains low at 4.1 percent. But the ground is shifting.

The University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment fell 6.8 points, a drop of 11 percent from last month and 27 percent from a year earlier.

• “Frequent gyrations in economic policies make it very difficult for consumers to plan for the future, regardless of one’s policy preferences,” said Joanne Hsu, the school’s director of consumer surveys.

Retailers like Walmart are warning that profit growth could slow this year. Airlines are reporting softer bookings for both business and leisure travel. Small-business owners are bracing for impact.

• “It’s very surprising — and without a political dog in the hunt — I’m surprised that an administration would want to create this kind of chaos in a market,” Jeff Morrill, who owns car dealerships in Franklin and Hanover, told the Globe.

The big picture: At times Trump has made matters worse, as when he declined to rule out a recession in an interview with Fox News aired last week.

• Trump dismisses the naysayers, vowing that tariffs will revitalize Made-in-America manufacturing, create the kind of well-paying production jobs that disappeared when cheap Chinese goods flooded the US market, and force countries to remove obstacles to US companies selling in their markets.
• He’s also deputized billionaire Elon Musk to take a chainsaw to the federal bureaucracy in a high-profile, and highly controversial, effort to cut spending and rein in an unaccountable “administrative state.”

Financial Times economics columnist Gillian Tett summed it up this way: The Trump team is trying to achieve a “big reset for the global trading, economic, financial, tech, and military systems, and essentially ensure American supremacy and vibrancy for many years to come,” she said on “The Ezra Klein Show” podcast.

“And the tactics are to use, essentially, threats, capricious and uncertain bullying, tariffs, military power — all of those as ways of getting leverage to achieve that.”

Final thought: How much economic disruption is Trump willing to put the country through to Make America Great Again?

On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that he was not worried about the recent stock market losses.

“Over the long term, if we put good tax policy in place, deregulation and energy security, the markets will do great,” he said.

What might happen in the short term — Lost jobs? Shrinking retirement accounts? Rising prices? — is far from obvious.

What is clear is that the world’s richest economy is now the test subject in a radical, high-risk clinical trial — and if it all blows up, it’s working Americans, not the fawning dinner supplicants at Mar-a-Lago, who will be left holding the bag.

So America, are you all in on this bet?

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Larry Edelman can be reached at larry.edelman@globe.com.