Trump faces ‘real problems’ as data shows US ‘might be due’ for recession: NYT journalist
CNN contributor and New York Times podcast host Lulu Garcia-Navarro warned on Tuesday that President Donald Trump is taking a "double-edged" sword to the economy, as evidenced by the latest job numbers.
The Department of Labor published data on Tuesday that revised the previous quarter's job numbers downward by 900,000, which was the largest downward revision in the agency's history. The revision came about a month after Trump removed the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner because the agency published what he described as unreliable data.
Garcia-Navarro said the data BLS published shows there are "real problems" surfacing in Trump's economy.
"To me, what's most interesting about these numbers is manufacturing," Garcia-Navarro said. "There are some real problems in manufacturing."
Trump has made it a goal of his second administration to re-establish America's manufacturing base. To that end, he has implemented numerous tariffs that seek to protect American manufacturers from foreign competition.
"This whole idea that somehow manufacturing is going to be resurgent, I think, is showing a lot of weakness," Garcia-Navarro said.
The data also adds to the growing skepticism about the state of the U.S. economy. Trump has repeatedly said the U.S. economy is in good health, although some experts like J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon have their doubts.
“I think the economy is weakening,” Dimon told CNBC on Tuesday. “Whether it’s on the way to recession or just weakening, I don’t know.”
Garcia-Navarro said part of the economic weakness is being driven by decreased federal spending.
"You're seeing a double-edged sword here, where they are actually limiting the economy in two different ways that are showing," she added. "I think the word recession is a word that we haven't seen in a while, but we might be due for it."
