Trump blaze leading officials on economic data as tariffs lead to market decline

U.S. President Donald Trump fired one of the most important economic institutions of the United States for hours more than expected about its tariff policies.

On social media, Trump claimed – without any evidence – Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Commissioner Erika McEntarfer “manipulated the “job” to make Republicans and me look bad.

U.S. stock markets plummeted after unprecedented moves from the White House, with some accusing Trump of destroying public trust by politicizing data.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the president was a “bad leader” and his “shot messenger” statistics were weak.

Markets already rattled Friday after Trump proposed plans to cancel import tariffs on countries around the world.

BLS then released figures showing that U.S. employers added just 73,000 jobs in July, well below forecasts of 109,000 new roles.

It also revised employment growth in May and June, with reported 250,000 fewer jobs than previously thought.

Trump insists: “The economy is booming under “Trump.”

But Heather Long, chief economist at Naval Federal Credit Union, said the work was a “gamechanger”, adding that “the labor market is deteriorating rapidly” due to uncertainty caused by Trump’s tariffs.

Trump dismissed concerns about his tariff plan, which he said would promote U.S. manufacturing and rebalancing global trade.

But this week’s data and a series of updates to the company’s tariff costs make these forecasts even harder to ignore.

In his decision to fire former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, he said: “The heads of key government agencies were fired because you don’t like the numbers they reported, which come from investigations conducted using long-established procedures, are in the case of authoritarian countries, not democratic countries.”

Friends of BLS, a group whose members include two former commissioners of the agency, said: “When leaders of other countries politicize economic data, it undermines public trust in all official statistics and government science.”

McEntarfer calls her time as a commissioner “a honor of my life” while describing the agency’s work as “critical.”

Leading stock indexes all fell sharply on Friday.

Trump has attacked major economic figures in the past, and recently, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, as central banks continue to hold interest rates.

Trump demands layoffs, but the Fed is slamming until he sees the full impact of tariffs on the U.S. economy.

After the Jobs report, Trump launched a further Salvo in Powell, saying he should “shepherd.”

Adriana Kugler, a member of the Fed’s Settings Committee, is resigning to give Trump a chance to install new people.

The head of the labor department that oversees the BLS wrote on social media that William Wiatrowski, the agency’s deputy commissioner, will play the position in the search for a replacement.

The Labor Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

With the advent of new data, BLS modify job numbers every month, often adding or subtracting ten positions in thousands of positions.

Although the change this month is much larger than usual, analysts say the update is consistent with other data showing slowdowns.

Some speculate that they can reflect a blow to small businesses, which usually responds to investigations slowly and is particularly vulnerable to tariffs.

“The revision is normal,” Sweet said. “They are trying to make this right.”

McEntarfer worked in the government for more than 20 years until he was nominated to lead the BLS in 2023. Later, the U.S. Senate almost unanimously confirmed her.

Michael Strain, the right-leaning director of economic policy research at the American Enterprise Institute, defended Ms. Endaffer, who said she had taken her own actions with “great integrity.”

“Decision makers must understand that the government’s statistics are fair and of the highest quality. By raising doubts about this, the president is hurting the United States.”

Jed Kolko, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the firing caused a serious alarm.

“I said that in six months, the threat to economic data is more harmful than intentional. No more. The person in charge of the BLS is fired is five intentional harm to the integrity of the U.S. economic data and the entire statistical system,” he wrote on social media.

Trump defended the decision and said she needed to leave to ensure there are “people we can trust” in these positions.

“Why do anyone have to trust numbers?” the president told reporters when he left the White House on Friday.

“I believe the numbers are fake, like before the election, there are other times – so you know what I did? I fired her, you know what I did? The right thing.”

This battle for data comes after Trump reinvented trade policies, hitting goods from around the world, with new tariffs ranging from 10% to 50%.

When Trump proposed a similar plan in April, U.S. stocks fell more than 10% in a week as concerns spread to the dollar and bond markets.

The stock market resumed after the stock market suspended some of the most intense measures, resulting in less penalties and an expected 10% tax. In recent weeks, U.S. indexes have been trading at all-time highs.

The latest measures are less extreme than the biggest Trump proposed in April, but they will still raise the average tariff rate to about 17%, up from 2.5% earlier this year.

“The reality is Trump is brave enough to come back,” Michael Gayed, portfolio manager of the free market ETF, told the BBC’s opening clock. “Now he will try his luck again.”