President Trump fumed on Friday over a weak jobs report and major downward revisions to May and June employment figures that set off alarm bells about the direction of the U.S. economy.
He also fired the commissioner of the Bureau and Labor Statistics (BLS) over what he called politically-motivated economic numbers designed to make him look bad.
The U.S. added only 73,000 jobs in July and the unemployment rate stayed flat at 4.2 percent, according to data released Friday by the Labor Department. That was well below the expectations of economists, most of whom projected job gains of at least 100,000 in July.
Job growth in May and June was also far lower than first reported, according to the Labor Department, which shaved 258,000 jobs off of its past two reports.
The bad jobs news followed Trump’s night announcement of higher tariff rates on dozens of nations that hadn’t yet agreed to trade deals with the U.S., hours before his suspended “reciprocal” tariffs were set to take effect Friday. Those new rates will take effect Aug. 7.
In a separate executive order, Trump set Canada’s tariff rate at 35 percent, 10 points higher than he’d previously announced, which he said reflected the nation’s inability to control fentanyl at the border.
The jobs report is giving Democrats a new line of attack to use against Trump ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
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