Global Markets Turmoil After Trump Fires Top Statistician (Worthy News In-Depth)
By Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Chief International Correspondent
JAKARTA/WASHINGTON/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – U.S. President Donald J. Trump may be forgiven for not knowing her personally. Yet Victoria certainly knows him — and the impact of Trump’s decisions on her portfolio, including firing the nation’s top statistician and seeking a new Federal Reserve governor.
“My stocks are moving so fast back and forth it’s scary,” the small investor in Indonesia told Worthy News Monday. Yet she was relieved her favorite firms were no longer in the dreaded red column on her cellphone application.
The woman, who uses part of her proceeds to help other Christians in the mainly Muslim nation, wasn’t the only one expressing relief: across the globe, stock markets rose as investors clung to hopes for rate cuts in the United States after a weak U.S. jobs report.
In the U.S., markets were expected to rise slightly after Friday’s selloff, which was linked to mounting concern over the reliability of U.S. economic data.
Trump has faced criticism from both Republican and Democratic parties about his perceived relentless attacks on the Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank, and for firing Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) chief Erika McEntarfer.
The president dismissed her Friday, just hours after data showed weak job growth — moves that critics see as undermining institutions typically viewed as free from political influence.
U.S. Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, blasted Trump’s decision.
“If she was just fired because the president or whoever decided to fire the director just did it because they didn’t like the numbers, they ought to grow up,” Tillis said.
DATA UNTRUSTWORTHY?
Fellow Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming, said if the data is untrustworthy, the public should find out, but added that firing the commissioner before knowing whether the numbers are inaccurate is “kind of impetuous.”
“If the president is firing the statistician because he doesn’t like the numbers but they are accurate, then that’s a problem,” Lummis stressed. “It’s not the statistician’s fault if the numbers are accurate and that they’re not what the president had hoped for.”
The BLS’s latest monthly report showed the labor market to be at best lukewarm, adding just 106,000 new jobs over the past three months — far fewer than previously estimated and less than the amount needed to keep unemployment from rising, analysts said.
The report, which included steep downgrades of the estimates for jobs added in May and June, suggested that Trump’s global tariffs have started to seriously slow the economy, according to commentators.
However, Trump claimed that McEntarfer “faked” employment figures in the run-up to last year’s election in an effort to boost Kamala Harris’s chances of victory.
“Today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad,” he wrote on his Truth Social media platform.
He did not immediately provide evidence for these allegations. Trump insisted that the U.S. economy was, in fact, “BOOMING” on his watch.
Friday’s employment figures told a very different story and raised questions about the state of the labor market since Trump’s return to office.
JOBS NUMBERS
“We need accurate Jobs Numbers,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified.”
News that Trump would get to fill a governorship position at the Federal Reserve added to worries among critical investors about the alleged “politicization of interest rate policy.”
The position opened up after Adriana Kugler announced Friday that she would vacate her board of governors seat, which wasn’t due to expire until January.
Her exit handed Trump a sooner-than-anticipated opportunity to appoint a governor who more closely aligns with his preference for lower interest rates.
Trump believes that lower rates will make loans, mortgages, and credit cards less expensive — increasing consumer spending and business demand.
However, the Federal Reserve has been reluctant to cut the interest rates of 4.25% to 4.5% as it seeks to control the inflation linked to rising prices of goods and services. By cooling the economy, the Fed aims to ease upward pressure on prices.
The policy has attracted foreign investors looking for higher returns on savings and bonds.
LOWER INFLATION
Experts say that increases demand for the U.S. dollar and strengthens the currency, which reduces the cost of imports and helps to lower inflation.
Yet, Trump argues that higher borrowing costs due to high interest rates undermine his “America First” economic policies.
The president has openly condemned Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair — whose term expires in May next year — for refusing to cut rates.
Last month their disagreements became clear during Trump’s visit to inspect the renovation of the central bank’s historic headquarters in Washington.
When Trump paused before reporters to make a statement, “he beckoned Powell” over to stand next to him on camera, reporters said.
The president then claimed that the total cost of the renovations to the Federal Reserve buildings was $3.1 billion, a higher figure than had previously been reported.
As Trump made this claim, Powell shook his head no, signaling disagreement. “I’m not aware of that,” Powell said. “I haven’t heard that from anybody at the Fed.”
POWELL SURPRISED
Trump, a former real estate tycoon, insisted that this new figure “just came out” and removed papers from his coat as apparent proof, handing them to Powell.
“This came from us?” Powell asked.
After Trump said the figures had come from his people, Powell discovered why the number was suddenly much larger.
“You included a third building,” Powell added. Powell has refused to resign.
Back in Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, and elsewhere, investors hope the leader of the world’s biggest economy will continue bringing prosperity by overcoming infighting and slowdowns from tariffs.
The Jakarta Post, Indonesia’s leading English-language newspaper, expressed skepticism about the Indonesian government’s deal with Trump over a 19-percent tariff imposed on Indonesian products by September 1.
“Put bluntly, the way the U.S. dealt with trade partners can be likened to a robber demanding a person hand over their wallet but then settling for just half of the cash, as long as the victim grants the robber some additional favors, and takes it all on the chin with a smile.”
(With reporting from Asia, Europe, and the United States.)
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