Latest / Trumponomics / What Will Be the Economic Fallout of Trump’s Immigration Crackdown?
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. We have a lot
- 0:08Speaker 1: of buddyguards and a lot of cops that are in
- 0:11Speaker 1: the forum of Alligators. You do not have to pay
- 0:13Speaker 1: him so much, but I wouldn't want to run through
- 0:15Speaker 1: the Everett legs for long.
- 0:26Speaker 2: I'm Stephanie Flanders, head of Government and Economics at Bloomberg,
- 0:30Speaker 2: and welcome to Trumpernomics, the podcast that looks at the
- 0:32Speaker 2: economic world of Donald Trump, how he's already shaped the
- 0:35Speaker 2: global economy, what on earth is going to happen next?
- 0:39Speaker 2: And we're recording this on Tuesday, just after the Senate
- 0:43Speaker 2: pulled an all nighter attempting to pass Donald Trump's three
- 0:46Speaker 2: point three trillion dollar budget bill. And that's the last
- 0:49Speaker 2: we're going to say about it, because this week we're
- 0:51Speaker 2: focusing on a part of Trump and Nomics which could
- 0:54Speaker 2: end up having a bigger impact on the US economy,
- 0:57Speaker 2: the crackdown on immigration. What's at stake, who's hurting already
- 1:02Speaker 2: and what are the odds that the administration on this
- 1:05Speaker 2: at least changes course. As we record this week's conversation,
- 1:10Speaker 2: President Donald Trump is in fact en route to o
- 1:12Speaker 2: choppy Florida. He's visiting what's been dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, which
- 1:17Speaker 2: is the Florida Attorney General's proposal to turn an abandoned
- 1:20Speaker 2: airport in the heart of the Everglades into a quote's
- 1:24Speaker 2: one stop shop to carry out President Trump's mass deportation agenda.
- 1:29Speaker 2: The plan has its critics, naturally, building a tense city
- 1:33Speaker 2: in a fragile swamp during hurricane season doesn't strike everyone
- 1:36Speaker 2: as the best idea, but it's captured the attention of
- 1:39Speaker 2: the mag of Faithful because it so perfectly symbolizes the
- 1:42Speaker 2: aggressive approach that ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement is taking
- 1:47Speaker 2: to get its detention numbers up, raiding construction sites, workplaces,
- 1:51Speaker 2: and courthouses to round up unauthorized immigrants. We've all seen
- 1:56Speaker 2: the protest that these raids have caused across America. Slightly
- 2:01Speaker 2: more beneath the surface, there's also deepening concern about the
- 2:04Speaker 2: economic impact of these policies and the long term risks
- 2:07Speaker 2: to US economic growth. So to help us understand more
- 2:11Speaker 2: about what's worrying economists and businesses and how that might
- 2:14Speaker 2: shape the administration's immigration strategy from here, we've invited two
- 2:19Speaker 2: of my Bloomberg colleagues on for today's episode with me
- 2:22Speaker 2: from Miami. I'm very glad to welcome to Trump Andomics
- 2:25Speaker 2: Jonathan live In, a Bloomberg opinion columnist focused on US
- 2:28Speaker 2: markets and economics. Jonathan, thanks very much for coming on
- 2:31Speaker 2: Trump Andnomics.
- 2:32Speaker 1: Honored to be here.
- 2:33Speaker 2: And from Washington, d C. Kate Davidson, Bloomberg's managing editor
- 2:37Speaker 2: for US Economic Policy, who you've heard before. Thanks for
- 2:40Speaker 2: having me. I'm going to start with you, Jonathan, which
- 2:48Speaker 2: is sort of unusual because you're the opinion columnist, but
- 2:50Speaker 2: you're also sitting in Miami, so I know that you're
- 2:52Speaker 2: seeing some of these impacts of the immigration policies close up,
- 2:56Speaker 2: and let me just start with that. How are these
- 2:58Speaker 2: policies affect the labor market right now or what's the
- 3:02Speaker 2: concern for local employers?
- 3:04Speaker 1: Yeah, well, a labor market, it's not exactly clear just yet,
- 3:08Speaker 1: but I think we're seeing indications of this in the
- 3:11Speaker 1: housing market, for instance. People are more apprehensive about making
- 3:15Speaker 1: long term decisions because they don't know what their status
- 3:19Speaker 1: is going to be in the medium term. Over the
- 3:22Speaker 1: next few months, you have to start feeling the impacts
- 3:25Speaker 1: because estimates from the likes of Morgan Stanley suggest that
- 3:30Speaker 1: the net flows of immigrants, this is both documented and undocumented,
- 3:35Speaker 1: are going to step down in just a huge way.
- 3:37Speaker 3: From twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five.
- 3:39Speaker 1: The estimate is that we'll go from something on the
- 3:42Speaker 1: order of a net three million all the way down
- 3:45Speaker 1: to something on the order of a zero point three
- 3:48Speaker 1: zero point four. So just from a flows standpoint, that's
- 3:52Speaker 1: a massive change, and it's something that's going to feel
- 3:55Speaker 1: even more massive in immigrant heavy cities like the one
- 4:00Speaker 1: that I live in. I do want to clarify that
- 4:02Speaker 1: despite this sort of shock in awe of a lot
- 4:06Speaker 1: of these raids, where the effect is really being felt
- 4:10Speaker 1: again is in that sort of chilling effect which is
- 4:14Speaker 1: affecting inflows, and it's also affecting people's willingness to show
- 4:20Speaker 1: up at their workplaces. And one final thing, unrelated to
- 4:25Speaker 1: the documented undocumented question, the Trump administration has also moved
- 4:31Speaker 1: to remove the status of a number of people who
- 4:34Speaker 1: were working here legally, including prominently in the hospitality industry
- 4:40Speaker 1: here in South Florida where I live, in the warehousing industry.
- 4:44Speaker 1: So you know, I'm thinking specifically about the many, many
- 4:47Speaker 1: Venezuelans who fled their country and we're working in South
- 4:51Speaker 1: Florida legally and going forward will no longer be able
- 4:54Speaker 1: to do so.
- 4:55Speaker 2: So there's a lot there. Jonathan is great because you've
- 4:58Speaker 2: mentioned a lot of the different things that we want
- 5:00Speaker 2: touch on. There's a sort of long term reliance of
- 5:03Speaker 2: the US economy on immigration that we've seen, particularly in
- 5:07Speaker 2: the last few years. It's where a lot of the
- 5:09Speaker 2: labor force growth has come from the last few years.
- 5:11Speaker 2: You've also highlighted something that I think is coming on
- 5:14Speaker 2: the radar more and more. It's not just undocumented with
- 5:17Speaker 2: immigrants that are potentially in the administration site. So there's
- 5:21Speaker 2: also various naturalized citizens and people of a legal status
- 5:26Speaker 2: like the Haitians who were offered a refuge in the US.
- 5:30Speaker 2: The policy is broadening to them. And finally, I want
- 5:33Speaker 2: to get to first, there's this fact that you can
- 5:36Speaker 2: be impacting the labor market and people can be disappearing
- 5:39Speaker 2: from the labor force even without being deported, because people
- 5:43Speaker 2: are not showing up to work. And some of your
- 5:45Speaker 2: team did a fantastic story the other day highlighting the
- 5:49Speaker 2: sectors where that was already apparent, including in La.
- 5:52Speaker 4: Sure well, Chris Jonathan is in South Florida. But we
- 5:55Speaker 4: have seen on national news a lot of headlines about
- 5:58Speaker 4: what's happening in Los Angeles, right and what our colleagues
- 6:01Speaker 4: found and talking to various business owners and talking to
- 6:03Speaker 4: some workers. I mean, people are afraid you're not hearing
- 6:06Speaker 4: the hum of sewing machines buzzing in these garment factories
- 6:09Speaker 4: and la fields had emptied out where crops are picked,
- 6:13Speaker 4: although it sounds like workers were returning despite some of
- 6:16Speaker 4: the concerns. They spoke with Texas dairy farmers who say
- 6:19Speaker 4: workers aren't showing up to milk cows, an Idaho onion
- 6:23Speaker 4: grower who's struggling to find enough crop hands. A lot
- 6:25Speaker 4: of this again in that agricultural space, which we saw
- 6:28Speaker 4: President Trump talk about and kind of acknowledged that he
- 6:31Speaker 4: was hearing from people in those industries that this was
- 6:33Speaker 4: affecting their ability to keep business going essentially, and I
- 6:38Speaker 4: think that chilling effect is really important and as I said,
- 6:41Speaker 4: affects businesses and productivity. I think that's where you're starting
- 6:44Speaker 4: to hear and see more of the pressure ramp up
- 6:47Speaker 4: in our reporting of it's difficult right to find employers
- 6:50Speaker 4: who are willing to go on the record and say yes,
- 6:52Speaker 4: we hire and we employ immigrants who aren't allowed to
- 6:55Speaker 4: work here. But when push comes to shove and when
- 6:59Speaker 4: these raids, as these raids have ramped up, you're starting
- 7:02Speaker 4: to see these issues. They're unavoidable, you know, their clearest
- 7:05Speaker 4: day that they're becoming a bigger problem.
- 7:07Speaker 2: Yes, and you've named there some of the sectors that
- 7:09Speaker 2: are most reliant on undocumented workers, agriculture, hospitality, construction. But
- 7:17Speaker 2: as Johnson said, the Trump administration isn't just targeting undocumented workers,
- 7:21Speaker 2: but also workers who are here on legal temporary work permits.
- 7:25Speaker 2: And I saw we've written about this that's become a
- 7:28Speaker 2: particular challenge for parts of the healthcare industry.
- 7:31Speaker 4: Right some of our colleagues did a story about home
- 7:33Speaker 4: health AIDS, and that is one of the fastest growing
- 7:36Speaker 4: jobs in the country, or the fastest growing job in
- 7:39Speaker 4: the country, and a lot of workers in that sector
- 7:41Speaker 4: are here on those temporary work permits. And they are
- 7:44Speaker 4: We've talked to some some senior living communities and they
- 7:47Speaker 4: were saying that they are losing workers. People have left,
- 7:50Speaker 4: that they're afraid to come to work or that they're
- 7:52Speaker 4: unable to because of these efforts, and so it's having
- 7:54Speaker 4: an impact. They are not just in the sectors that
- 7:57Speaker 4: are reliant on undocumented workers.
- 7:59Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought that was fascinating. Is one of the
- 8:01Speaker 2: single most common US job, something four million people working
- 8:05Speaker 2: as home health and personal care aids. And it's although
- 8:09Speaker 2: this foreign born about one in five of US workers,
- 8:13Speaker 2: but forty percent of home health aids foreign born. And Jonathan,
- 8:17Speaker 2: you've mentioned in some of your columns the uncertainty we've had.
- 8:22Speaker 2: As Kate mentioned, Donald Trump had even said he's concerned
- 8:25Speaker 2: about the impact. He's obviously hearing this from presumably people
- 8:29Speaker 2: in the hospitality business, his own business, are worried about this,
- 8:33Speaker 2: are complaining to him. And there was at one point
- 8:34Speaker 2: he seemed to be suggesting a softer path in those sectors,
- 8:38Speaker 2: but there was then a reversal remind us where we
- 8:42Speaker 2: actually are. I mean, there's just a lot of uncertainty
- 8:44Speaker 2: about the policy.
- 8:46Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, it speaks to sort of what a shock
- 8:48Speaker 1: this policy would represent to a number of sectors. And
- 8:53Speaker 1: as you say, it seems like the Trump administration is
- 8:55Speaker 1: hearing this from some of their supporters. Basically, what happened
- 8:59Speaker 1: is to Trump came out on social media and he said,
- 9:03Speaker 1: we're cognizant of the pressure that this is putting on
- 9:06Speaker 1: the agriculture sector, of course, a core base for President Trump.
- 9:10Speaker 1: We're cognizant of the fact that this is putting a
- 9:13Speaker 1: lot of pressure on hospitality, where President Trump himself has
- 9:16Speaker 1: a lot of experience. You know, it seems like President
- 9:19Speaker 1: Trump took all this on board and he vaguely said
- 9:22Speaker 1: we're going to do something about this. Subsequently, there was
- 9:25Speaker 1: some reporting that came out that suggested that the very
- 9:28Speaker 1: same day the order actually trickled down to Ice and
- 9:32Speaker 1: said hold on raids in these places. But it wasn't
- 9:37Speaker 1: more than a few days that went by that guidance
- 9:41Speaker 1: ended up being walked back. So it seems like the
- 9:44Speaker 1: administration is between Iraq and a hard place. It wants
- 9:47Speaker 1: to come off as a sort of tough on immigration,
- 9:53Speaker 1: tough on these institutions, tough on would be violators of
- 9:58Speaker 1: immigration laws. But at the same time time there does
- 10:01Speaker 1: seem to be a very personal understanding by President Trump
- 10:06Speaker 1: that these workers are just the way that these corners
- 10:09Speaker 1: of the economy work. One further thing, I just want
- 10:13Speaker 1: to underscore that back in the first Trump administration, there
- 10:16Speaker 1: was a lot of wonderful reporting by the New York
- 10:19Speaker 1: times about how Trump himself either directly or indirectly employed
- 10:25Speaker 1: many of these workers at his various clubs and so
- 10:29Speaker 1: on and so forth. There was even a really eye
- 10:33Speaker 1: opening report that the woman who cleaned his room and
- 10:37Speaker 1: made his bed was undocumented herself. So it really just
- 10:41Speaker 1: goes to show you that these people are part of
- 10:45Speaker 1: the fabric of the US economy, and if you were
- 10:48Speaker 1: to take them out of it, you could think what
- 10:50Speaker 1: you will about the long term impacts, but it's going
- 10:53Speaker 1: to deliver a shock.
- 10:55Speaker 4: And if I could just jump into one thing to
- 10:57Speaker 4: add there as well, is that these are industries that
- 11:00Speaker 4: have already faced chronic labor shortages, right, So that's part
- 11:04Speaker 4: of the you know, the idea I think for the
- 11:07Speaker 4: administration is if immigrants weren't taking these jobs, there are
- 11:10Speaker 4: all these other people who would be willing to step
- 11:12Speaker 4: in and take them. And I think that there are
- 11:15Speaker 4: a lot of people with a lot of reason to
- 11:17Speaker 4: be skeptical that's the case unless there are other reforms
- 11:21Speaker 4: or other changes that happen that could make legal immigration easier.
- 11:25Speaker 2: Yeah, because we know unemployment is extremely low, and as
- 11:29Speaker 2: a point we made earlier that a large share of
- 11:31Speaker 2: the employment growth possibly all the employment growth in the
- 11:34Speaker 2: last few years has been from immigrants because of a
- 11:37Speaker 2: tight labor market. Kate, you've taken us onto the next
- 11:42Speaker 2: year or so economic impact. How much do you have
- 11:44Speaker 2: a sense that this is on the Federal reserves the
- 11:47Speaker 2: Central Bank's radar.
- 11:49Speaker 4: Well, I think it is definitely on their radar. And
- 11:52Speaker 4: when we have heard FED sher J. Powell talk about
- 11:55Speaker 4: all the uncertainty right now around the path ahead for
- 11:58Speaker 4: the Fed, he talked about broadly about government policies. Yes,
- 12:02Speaker 4: he talks about tariffs, and he's taken a lot of
- 12:04Speaker 4: heat for that that he's weighing on on them, but
- 12:06Speaker 4: he does make a point to say, it's not just tariffs.
- 12:08Speaker 4: It's tax the tax bill changes to the tax code,
- 12:11Speaker 4: it is or extending these tax cuts that we had previously,
- 12:14Speaker 4: and it's also immigration. And Powell talked a lot about immigration.
- 12:18Speaker 4: Actually last year, and even before then, there was a
- 12:21Speaker 4: lot of new research and analysis of the immigration data
- 12:25Speaker 4: that showed that actually this wave of immigration had helped
- 12:29Speaker 4: to expand the labor force and was helpful to the
- 12:33Speaker 4: FED in its bid to bring down inflation without driving
- 12:36Speaker 4: up unemployment. It helped to bolster growth. I mean, that
- 12:39Speaker 4: was something that we saw over several years after the pandemic,
- 12:42Speaker 4: but really picked up in recent years and might have
- 12:44Speaker 4: been part of the reason why the FED didn't have
- 12:46Speaker 4: a bigger downturn as was expected when it ramped up
- 12:50Speaker 4: interest rates, that inflation came down without this big weakening.
- 12:53Speaker 4: So now that is essentially going in reverse. And so
- 12:56Speaker 4: what we've seen so far this year is the size
- 12:59Speaker 4: of the work were shrunk in May and it was
- 13:01Speaker 4: the biggest back to back decline and the number of
- 13:04Speaker 4: foreign burned workers in the labor force since twenty twenty.
- 13:07Speaker 4: The outlook right now is for a smaller labor force,
- 13:10Speaker 4: which actually could actually end up limiting the rise in unemployment.
- 13:13Speaker 4: It gets a little bit complicated, but it's something that
- 13:15Speaker 4: the FED and the Powell has talked about, which is
- 13:18Speaker 4: that this just may be masking underlying weakness in the
- 13:22Speaker 4: economy if you have fewer workers in the labor force,
- 13:25Speaker 4: so I think that could potentially make their job harder
- 13:28Speaker 4: as they try to figure out what's actually going on here.
- 13:31Speaker 4: If there are just fewer workers competing for jobs, essentially
- 13:35Speaker 4: in businesses have slowed hiring or they're laying people off.
- 13:37Speaker 4: The underlying picture, it might not be clear that it's
- 13:40Speaker 4: looking as bad. So that's something that the FED has
- 13:42Speaker 4: to pay close attention to as well as it's deciding, hey,
- 13:44Speaker 4: is it time to start low wearing rates? How bad
- 13:47Speaker 4: is the labor marketer underlying demand? At the same time
- 13:50Speaker 4: that they're worried about potential inflation pressures from tariffs, and.
- 13:54Speaker 2: The inflation impact is interesting, and I guess it goes
- 13:57Speaker 2: to the long term objective of this policy. I mean,
- 14:01Speaker 2: of course, there'll be some who say this is driven
- 14:04Speaker 2: by the nativist populist agenda, but there's plenty of people
- 14:09Speaker 2: who would back a version of this approach. We had
- 14:12Speaker 2: one of them on the show very beginning of Trumponomics,
- 14:15Speaker 2: or in Cass the Conservative Economists. There are thinkers on
- 14:19Speaker 2: the right and on the left who feel that the
- 14:22Speaker 2: US economy has been too reliant on cheap immigrant labor
- 14:26Speaker 2: that has worsened wages and working conditions for a big
- 14:31Speaker 2: chunk of a working population, and that we need to
- 14:34Speaker 2: have a different model.
- 14:36Speaker 3: The reality is that illegal immigration overwhelmingly goes into the
- 14:40Speaker 3: labor market in a set of low wage sectors, and
- 14:44Speaker 3: those happen to be sectors where working conditions are not
- 14:48Speaker 3: very good where typically we have not seen significant investments
- 14:52Speaker 3: in productivity increases because there has always been an assumption
- 14:56Speaker 3: that we can find illegal immigrants to do the work.
- 14:59Speaker 2: And sort of accepted that there was going to be
- 15:01Speaker 2: short term costs. But then ultimately the market would respond
- 15:06Speaker 2: and you would see working conditions get better and more
- 15:12Speaker 2: Americans more attracted into these industries.
- 15:16Speaker 3: And so as those folks leave the labor market, what
- 15:20Speaker 3: we are going to see as employers having to offer
- 15:22Speaker 3: higher wages and better conditions to attract the workers that
- 15:26Speaker 3: they need, and that will be a very good thing
- 15:28Speaker 3: for workers. I'm always a little bit puzzled when the
- 15:31Speaker 3: exact same folks who celebrate the wonders of the free
- 15:34Speaker 3: market and competitive forces then turn around if we're talking
- 15:38Speaker 3: about immigration, say you know, oh, no, none of this works.
- 15:41Speaker 3: Businesses are designed to operate under constraints and solve the
- 15:45Speaker 3: problems put in front of them. And the problem is
- 15:48Speaker 3: for our economy, we have not put the problem of
- 15:51Speaker 3: provide a good product at a low price with the
- 15:54Speaker 3: workers in America as the problem to solve, and now
- 15:57Speaker 3: that is going to be the problem to solve. And
- 15:59Speaker 3: I'm actually somebody who has a lot of faith in
- 16:01Speaker 3: markets and businesses to solve that problem.
- 16:04Speaker 2: But Jonathan, I mean, first, I guess, do you buy
- 16:07Speaker 2: that sort of longer term view of what's going on here?
- 16:11Speaker 2: And when you're just looking at the industries that you're
- 16:13Speaker 2: familiar with, those sectors that we've talked about, how likely
- 16:16Speaker 2: is it that's going to happen that you'll see just
- 16:18Speaker 2: a ramping up of working conditions and combined with possibly
- 16:21Speaker 2: a bit of automation.
- 16:23Speaker 1: Well, first of all, I don't know that the evidence
- 16:25Speaker 1: exactly supports Orn's argument on that. I mean, phenomenal economists
- 16:31Speaker 1: David Card and George Borjas, who is now associated with
- 16:35Speaker 1: the Trump CEA have been studying this issue for decades
- 16:39Speaker 1: and decades, and what all of these studies find, both
- 16:44Speaker 1: sort of natural experiments and model based studies done by
- 16:48Speaker 1: George Borjas now with the CEA, they find sort of
- 16:53Speaker 1: small effects on the key population. What they sort of
- 16:59Speaker 1: disparaging the call unskilled native born workers. And you know,
- 17:05Speaker 1: I don't love the term, but a.
- 17:06Speaker 2: Small impact on employment, but also on wages, on the.
- 17:10Speaker 1: Real wages more specifically. But moving beyond that, I think
- 17:15Speaker 1: that the key question in the here and now is
- 17:18Speaker 1: a are there going to be shocks and be like, is
- 17:21Speaker 1: there a smooth path to move beyond the shocks? And so,
- 17:26Speaker 1: for a I'm sure there are going to be shocks, because,
- 17:29Speaker 1: as we've talked about earlier in this conversation, we have
- 17:32Speaker 1: all these industries that Kate's talked about, healthcare, construction, agriculture, leisure,
- 17:38Speaker 1: and hospitality that, for better or worse, we have built
- 17:43Speaker 1: these industries in the United States to depend on this
- 17:47Speaker 1: immigrant labor, specific specifically that quote unquote low skilled immigrant labor.
- 17:52Speaker 1: It's the way our economy works. And then the subsequent
- 17:55Speaker 1: question is there a smooth and easy way to move
- 17:59Speaker 1: on from that? So let's just take the example of construction,
- 18:02Speaker 1: and construction is so important because everybody on every side
- 18:06Speaker 1: of the political aisle will acknowledge that there's a massive
- 18:09Speaker 1: housing deficit in the United States and that critical for
- 18:13Speaker 1: better quality of life for the entire population is to
- 18:16Speaker 1: build more housing. Okay, yes, we need productivity boosters in
- 18:22Speaker 1: that sector. Yes, we need to be doing more off
- 18:25Speaker 1: site manufacturing. We need to be bringing in these pre
- 18:32Speaker 1: fabricated components, entire walls with the insulation built in. We
- 18:37Speaker 1: need to get a lot more productive in that sector
- 18:40Speaker 1: in the way that some Scandinavian economies have gotten, or
- 18:45Speaker 1: the Germans or the Japanese. But guess what, that alone
- 18:49Speaker 1: is not going to help us solve the deficit. We
- 18:53Speaker 1: need the productivity enhancements and we need the immigrant labor.
- 18:57Speaker 1: Let's move over to agriculture. I am fairly bullish on
- 19:02Speaker 1: the possibility to bring in machines that are going to
- 19:05Speaker 1: pick the grapes that make our wine and whatever, pick
- 19:10Speaker 1: our strawberries, but the robepots just aren't good enough to
- 19:15Speaker 1: pick everything that we want to eat in this country.
- 19:19Speaker 1: Think about like these sinnowy trees that a lot of
- 19:22Speaker 1: fruits grow on. It's really hard to get a big
- 19:25Speaker 1: machine in between those trees in these orchards. Right. So,
- 19:30Speaker 1: there are a lot of problems that still haven't been solved.
- 19:33Speaker 1: And we can have these sort of sci fi fantasies that,
- 19:38Speaker 1: like the humanoid robots that Tesla is manufacturing, are going
- 19:42Speaker 1: to solve all of these problems, but they can't solve
- 19:45Speaker 1: them in the here and now, and I'm fairly confident
- 19:47Speaker 1: that they're not going to solve them even in the
- 19:49Speaker 1: medium term. And in the meantime, we need labor to
- 19:54Speaker 1: solve the problem for us to put food on the table.
- 19:57Speaker 2: And of course, yeah, and the test is not going
- 19:59Speaker 2: to solve it if he's Elon Musk has been deported,
- 20:01Speaker 2: But that's a whole other we come back full circle. Okay,
- 20:04Speaker 2: final question to UK Federal Reserve and economists generally are
- 20:08Speaker 2: looking at the economy and thinking about the impact of tariffs,
- 20:11Speaker 2: which is inflationary. If the bottom line of this policy,
- 20:17Speaker 2: the sort of ultimate economic impact, whatever the political ramifications
- 20:21Speaker 2: may be, is that we have higher wages, labor shortages,
- 20:26Speaker 2: and yes, higher inflation. Do you think there's a chance
- 20:29Speaker 2: that the administration has to soften its approach or is
- 20:32Speaker 2: this just too central to the agenda.
- 20:35Speaker 4: That's the big question, right. I wish I could answer it,
- 20:38Speaker 4: but I think that there's a chance. Sure, there's a chance.
- 20:43Speaker 4: I think it might come down to it, as it
- 20:45Speaker 4: always does, and the Trump administration who has more influence
- 20:48Speaker 4: or who maybe has the president's ear last, I think
- 20:50Speaker 4: that I think the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant would probably
- 20:55Speaker 4: be the voice to deliver that message right if things
- 20:59Speaker 4: were getting there, if it was getting that bad for
- 21:01Speaker 4: the economy, Although as we've seen with tariffs, you know,
- 21:04Speaker 4: President Trump seems to be pretty happy just blaming the
- 21:07Speaker 4: FED and saying the FED should lower rates and that
- 21:09Speaker 4: will help support the economy. So maybe that's the tack
- 21:11Speaker 4: you would take. Of course, he'll only be able to
- 21:13Speaker 4: do that for so much longer. He'll be naming a
- 21:14Speaker 4: new FED shair and maybe that comes up. You know,
- 21:17Speaker 4: maybe he will he said he wants somebody who's going
- 21:19Speaker 4: to lower rates. Maybe this is or should be part
- 21:22Speaker 4: of the conversation about how would the next FED chair
- 21:26Speaker 4: view this immigration issue and what could the FED do
- 21:29Speaker 4: to fix that problem. So that's another way. That's another
- 21:33Speaker 4: way around it. But but I think for now it
- 21:36Speaker 4: certainly seems, as Jonathan was pointing out, that they're you know,
- 21:40Speaker 4: when there has been an effort to be more to
- 21:43Speaker 4: I guess ease off a little bit. That the folks
- 21:46Speaker 4: who are those immigration hardliners, if we want to call them,
- 21:49Speaker 4: that have come right back in and managed to get
- 21:51Speaker 4: the president back on the track that they think he
- 21:53Speaker 4: ought to be on.
- 21:55Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes me think so the sort of forward
- 21:57Speaker 2: indicators that we have to develop for this Trump and economy,
- 22:01Speaker 2: it's not just what we've noticed in the labor market.
- 22:04Speaker 2: There has been a shrinking proportion of foreign born in
- 22:07Speaker 2: the labor numbers just in the last few months, which
- 22:10Speaker 2: shows something about that chilling effect. But maybe we also
- 22:13Speaker 2: ought to be monitoring how well Scott Bessent is getting
- 22:15Speaker 2: on with Stephen Miller and who's had you know which
- 22:18Speaker 2: of them has more meetings with Donald Trump? Kate Davidson,
- 22:22Speaker 2: Jonathan Levine, Thank you so much, thank you, thank you,
- 22:33Speaker 2: thanks for listening to Trump and Nomics from Bloomberg. It
- 22:35Speaker 2: was hosted by me Stephanie Flanders. I was joined by
- 22:38Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Jonathan Levin and Kate Davidson. Trump and Noomics is
- 22:42Speaker 2: produced by Summer, Sadi and Moses and with help from
- 22:45Speaker 2: Amy Keene and special thanks to Rachel Lewis Chrisky. Sound
- 22:49Speaker 2: designs by Blake Maples and the head of Bloomberg podcast
- 22:52Speaker 2: is Sage Bowman. To help others find the show and
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- 23:01Speaker 1: The change paper construct contact of the cut