What’s Behind President Trump’s Trade Agenda
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What is the main focus of President Trump's trade agenda?
The U.S. economy keeps adding jobs despite tariff uncertainty. But can it last? Plus, what's driving President Trump's trade agenda?
It's all about maximizing Trump's political power over not just people in the United States, not just U.S. politicians, but the global economy as well.
And President Trump says Harvard's tax exemption will be revoked. Harvard President Alan Garber says such a move would be highly illegal and destructive. It's Friday, May 2nd. I'm Keir Ginnemey for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for Alex Osola. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that moved the world today. Despite tariff uncertainty, employers in the U.S. added 177,000 jobs in April, beating the expectations of economists polled by the Wall Street Journal. But hiring slowed slightly compared to March's pace, in a period that saw changing tariff announcements and market turmoil. The unemployment rate, based on a separate survey, held steady at 4.2%.
How are jobs being affected by tariff uncertainty?
So what do these numbers tell us about the effects of Trump's trade policy? For that, I'm joined by our chief economics commentator, Greg Ip. Greg, what does this jobs report tell us about the economy post-Liberation Day?
It tells us that there's really been no loss of momentum in the economy, even after the very high tariffs that President Trump announced on April 2nd. April job gains against the revised figures for prior months, it looks very steady, very solid. The unemployment rate unchanged. This tells us a few things. One is that the underlying economy was very healthy when President Trump came into office. And secondly, that the effect of the tariffs is not really being felt yet. That's mostly because most products have not yet actually seen their prices go up because of tariffs. Partly that's because businesses may have pre-ordered. Partly it's because there were delays in the implementation of those tariffs. And the president has gone on to pause many of his own tariff announcements.
What insights does Greg Ip provide on the job market?
You say we haven't seen the effects of tariffs in these numbers yet. Should we expect a slowdown in future jobs gains?
Certainly all the economists that we talked to are expecting a slowing in job gains this year. There are certainly some economists who even think that we will go into a recession. And with the border basically closed to unauthorized migrants. The labor force will be growing more slowly in coming months. So I would expect that alone to pull down job growth. The bigger question is, will some of the sentiment and spending effects of tariffs further hurt hiring? And that it's a lot less certain because the president keeps changing his plans. businesses are reluctant to make dramatic changes one way or the other. A lot of them are holding out hope that just as he paused or rolled back many of the tariffs so far, he will continue to do so, and that you may not see as dramatic a change as people were anticipating just a month or two ago.
What about a separate aspect of the Trump administration's policies, federal layoffs?
Did those show up in the numbers? Yeah, we actually did see some effect of that. Federal employment was down around 10,000. If you exclude the post office, it was down around 8,500. And it's now down about 20,000 since the president took office. Now, federal employment does fluctuate. It's fair to say that that definitely represents the effect of the Department of Government Efficiency and some of the very severe cutbacks it implemented on federal payrolls. That effect, I expect, will continue to trickle out over coming months.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main focus of President Trump's trade agenda?
0:34–1:39
2
How are jobs being affected by tariff uncertainty?
1:39–2:33
3
What insights does Greg Ip provide on the job market?
2:33–7:25
4
What are the implications of revoking Harvard's tax-exempt status?
7:25–7:57
5
How does Harvard defend against Trump's threat?
7:57–8:16
6
What legal grounds does Harvard have regarding its tax status?
8:16–13:39
Speakers
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