Donald Trump has a problem with numbers. On August 1, 2025, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published its employment report for July. The American economy produced 73,000 new jobs in July, far lower than estimated. But it was not this number that sent President Trump into orbit. It was the revised numbers for May and June that took away a combined 268,000 jobs over the prior two months that caused him to fly into a rage and fire the BLS Commissioner.
Employment numbers are collected from surveys. Not surprisingly, not every employer immediately returns their survey. As information is received, BLS revises the numbers. This process has been the same for many years. For example, the BLS issued a report on August 21, 2024, that revised the job creation numbers downward by 818,000 jobs over the prior rolling 12-month period.
That report is significant because President Trump has been on the news claiming that the 818,000-downward revision was not released until after the 2024 election. Not only was this report published before the election, but it came out the very day Kamala Harris spoke at the Democratic National Convention. If the BLS were a political agency, as the President has claimed, it would be most unlikely to undercut the candidate of the party in office on the very day she made her case to the American people.
If you hear a Trump spokesperson repeating this information, they are not being truthful.
Perhaps one of the reasons President Trump is so sensitive to the BLS numbers is that May and June followed his April round of tariffs. I have been clipping tariff articles from the Wall Street Journal, and there have been few issues since April that do not include a tariff article in the A section. The A section of the WSJ is for hard-hitting news, and tariffs are hitting us hard.
The customary use of tariffs is to protect a fledgling or faltering industry in one’s own country, but that is not how Donald Trump is using them. The 50% tariff on products from Brazil that went into effect on August 1st is not about protecting our homegrown industries, but a punishment to Brazil for putting its former President Jair Bolsonaro on trial for leading a coup against the rightful winner of the last election. That means your morning coffee and orange juice (two major imports from Brazil) are going to cost more.
That’s because tariffs are not paid by the country from which the goods arrive but by the importer who passes along the cost to the consumer. It is shocking that few, if any, reporters will correct Trump Administration spokespeople when they say the exporting country will pay the tariffs. The International Court of Trade has already declared the Trump tariffs illegal because they are a tax on the American people, and the power of the purse strings lies exclusively with Congress.
You may have heard that Donald Trump tried to fire Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, whom he appointed to the position during his first term. He is also attempting to fire Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve Governor, whom he accused of mortgage fraud without any evidence. Up to this month most of Donald Trump’s disruptive behavior has been about culture wars. Many of us have found this ugly and cruel. One sign at a protest pictured “Donald the Destructor” (imagine the StayPuf Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters with Donald Trump’s face). While that was hilarious, this is no longer a laughing matter.
He is threatening the very foundations of our nation’s economy.
The reason businesses want to be in the U.S. is that it has had a stable government with three co-equal branches: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. Each has a role, and each is responsible for fulfilling its constitutional duty. It has a central bank that is independent of the political apparatus. Over the years, regulations were developed to prevent bad things (such as insider trading) from happening again. The BLS produces copious measurements of its jobs data and industry trends so business leaders can decide when they should add workers and give them raises, or if they need to hold off on expansion plans.
If the U.S. stops producing legitimate numbers, business leaders will have nothing to guide their planning. If the Federal Reserve were to lose its independence, confidence in the U.S. dollar would plummet, no one would buy our Treasury instruments, and our national debt will become overwhelming.
Many of you have called me in despair, so I will say to you all here that the antidote to despair is action. It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture, just a small act of community engagement. Write a letter, call your representative, attend a town hall, or a peaceful protest. Let your Congress people know how you feel. Don’t be afraid to act beyond your own district. If you hear about a great candidate running against a Trump enabler, donate to their campaign. We need a Congress and judiciary that will check Trump’s autocratic tendencies. Small actions by many are like drops of water coalescing into a tidal wave. All power comes from the people.
