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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. We have a lot

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Speaker 1: of buddyguards and a lot of cops that are in

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Speaker 1: the forum of Alligators. You do not have to pay

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Speaker 1: him so much, but I wouldn't want to run through

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Speaker 1: the Everett legs for long.

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Speaker 2: I'm Stephanie Flanders, head of Government and Economics at Bloomberg,

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Speaker 2: and welcome to Trumpernomics, the podcast that looks at the

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Speaker 2: economic world of Donald Trump, how he's already shaped the

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Speaker 2: global economy, what on earth is going to happen next?

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Speaker 2: And we're recording this on Tuesday, just after the Senate

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Speaker 2: pulled an all nighter attempting to pass Donald Trump's three

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Speaker 2: point three trillion dollar budget bill. And that's the last

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Speaker 2: we're going to say about it, because this week we're

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Speaker 2: focusing on a part of Trump and Nomics which could

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Speaker 2: end up having a bigger impact on the US economy,

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Speaker 2: the crackdown on immigration. What's at stake, who's hurting already

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Speaker 2: and what are the odds that the administration on this

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Speaker 2: at least changes course. As we record this week's conversation,

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Speaker 2: President Donald Trump is in fact en route to o

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Speaker 2: choppy Florida. He's visiting what's been dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, which

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Speaker 2: is the Florida Attorney General's proposal to turn an abandoned

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Speaker 2: airport in the heart of the Everglades into a quote's

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Speaker 2: one stop shop to carry out President Trump's mass deportation agenda.

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Speaker 2: The plan has its critics, naturally, building a tense city

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Speaker 2: in a fragile swamp during hurricane season doesn't strike everyone

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Speaker 2: as the best idea, but it's captured the attention of

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Speaker 2: the mag of Faithful because it so perfectly symbolizes the

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Speaker 2: aggressive approach that ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement is taking

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Speaker 2: to get its detention numbers up, raiding construction sites, workplaces,

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Speaker 2: and courthouses to round up unauthorized immigrants. We've all seen

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Speaker 2: the protest that these raids have caused across America. Slightly

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Speaker 2: more beneath the surface, there's also deepening concern about the

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Speaker 2: economic impact of these policies and the long term risks

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Speaker 2: to US economic growth. So to help us understand more

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Speaker 2: about what's worrying economists and businesses and how that might

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Speaker 2: shape the administration's immigration strategy from here, we've invited two

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Speaker 2: of my Bloomberg colleagues on for today's episode with me

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Speaker 2: from Miami. I'm very glad to welcome to Trump Andomics

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Speaker 2: Jonathan live In, a Bloomberg opinion columnist focused on US

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Speaker 2: markets and economics. Jonathan, thanks very much for coming on

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Speaker 2: Trump Andnomics.

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Speaker 1: Honored to be here.

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Speaker 2: And from Washington, d C. Kate Davidson, Bloomberg's managing editor

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Speaker 2: for US Economic Policy, who you've heard before. Thanks for

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Speaker 2: having me. I'm going to start with you, Jonathan, which

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Speaker 2: is sort of unusual because you're the opinion columnist, but

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Speaker 2: you're also sitting in Miami, so I know that you're

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Speaker 2: seeing some of these impacts of the immigration policies close up,

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Speaker 2: and let me just start with that. How are these

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Speaker 2: policies affect the labor market right now or what's the

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Speaker 2: concern for local employers?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, a labor market, it's not exactly clear just yet,

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Speaker 1: but I think we're seeing indications of this in the

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Speaker 1: housing market, for instance. People are more apprehensive about making

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Speaker 1: long term decisions because they don't know what their status

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Speaker 1: is going to be in the medium term. Over the

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Speaker 1: next few months, you have to start feeling the impacts

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Speaker 1: because estimates from the likes of Morgan Stanley suggest that

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Speaker 1: the net flows of immigrants, this is both documented and undocumented,

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Speaker 1: are going to step down in just a huge way.

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Speaker 3: From twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 1: The estimate is that we'll go from something on the

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Speaker 1: order of a net three million all the way down

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Speaker 1: to something on the order of a zero point three

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Speaker 1: zero point four. So just from a flows standpoint, that's

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Speaker 1: a massive change, and it's something that's going to feel

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Speaker 1: even more massive in immigrant heavy cities like the one

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Speaker 1: that I live in. I do want to clarify that

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Speaker 1: despite this sort of shock in awe of a lot

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Speaker 1: of these raids, where the effect is really being felt

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Speaker 1: again is in that sort of chilling effect which is

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Speaker 1: affecting inflows, and it's also affecting people's willingness to show

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Speaker 1: up at their workplaces. And one final thing, unrelated to

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Speaker 1: the documented undocumented question, the Trump administration has also moved

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Speaker 1: to remove the status of a number of people who

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Speaker 1: were working here legally, including prominently in the hospitality industry

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Speaker 1: here in South Florida where I live, in the warehousing industry.

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Speaker 1: So you know, I'm thinking specifically about the many, many

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Speaker 1: Venezuelans who fled their country and we're working in South

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Speaker 1: Florida legally and going forward will no longer be able

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Speaker 1: to do so.

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Speaker 2: So there's a lot there. Jonathan is great because you've

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Speaker 2: mentioned a lot of the different things that we want

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Speaker 2: touch on. There's a sort of long term reliance of

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Speaker 2: the US economy on immigration that we've seen, particularly in

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Speaker 2: the last few years. It's where a lot of the

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Speaker 2: labor force growth has come from the last few years.

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Speaker 2: You've also highlighted something that I think is coming on

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Speaker 2: the radar more and more. It's not just undocumented with

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Speaker 2: immigrants that are potentially in the administration site. So there's

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Speaker 2: also various naturalized citizens and people of a legal status

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Speaker 2: like the Haitians who were offered a refuge in the US.

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Speaker 2: The policy is broadening to them. And finally, I want

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Speaker 2: to get to first, there's this fact that you can

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Speaker 2: be impacting the labor market and people can be disappearing

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Speaker 2: from the labor force even without being deported, because people

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Speaker 2: are not showing up to work. And some of your

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Speaker 2: team did a fantastic story the other day highlighting the

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Speaker 2: sectors where that was already apparent, including in La.

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Speaker 4: Sure well, Chris Jonathan is in South Florida. But we

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Speaker 4: have seen on national news a lot of headlines about

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Speaker 4: what's happening in Los Angeles, right and what our colleagues

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Speaker 4: found and talking to various business owners and talking to

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Speaker 4: some workers. I mean, people are afraid you're not hearing

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Speaker 4: the hum of sewing machines buzzing in these garment factories

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Speaker 4: and la fields had emptied out where crops are picked,

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Speaker 4: although it sounds like workers were returning despite some of

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Speaker 4: the concerns. They spoke with Texas dairy farmers who say

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Speaker 4: workers aren't showing up to milk cows, an Idaho onion

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Speaker 4: grower who's struggling to find enough crop hands. A lot

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Speaker 4: of this again in that agricultural space, which we saw

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Speaker 4: President Trump talk about and kind of acknowledged that he

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Speaker 4: was hearing from people in those industries that this was

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Speaker 4: affecting their ability to keep business going essentially, and I

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Speaker 4: think that chilling effect is really important and as I said,

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Speaker 4: affects businesses and productivity. I think that's where you're starting

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Speaker 4: to hear and see more of the pressure ramp up

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Speaker 4: in our reporting of it's difficult right to find employers

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Speaker 4: who are willing to go on the record and say yes,

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Speaker 4: we hire and we employ immigrants who aren't allowed to

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Speaker 4: work here. But when push comes to shove and when

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Speaker 4: these raids, as these raids have ramped up, you're starting

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Speaker 4: to see these issues. They're unavoidable, you know, their clearest

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Speaker 4: day that they're becoming a bigger problem.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and you've named there some of the sectors that

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Speaker 2: are most reliant on undocumented workers, agriculture, hospitality, construction. But

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Speaker 2: as Johnson said, the Trump administration isn't just targeting undocumented workers,

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Speaker 2: but also workers who are here on legal temporary work permits.

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Speaker 2: And I saw we've written about this that's become a

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Speaker 2: particular challenge for parts of the healthcare industry.

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Speaker 4: Right some of our colleagues did a story about home

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Speaker 4: health AIDS, and that is one of the fastest growing

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Speaker 4: jobs in the country, or the fastest growing job in

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Speaker 4: the country, and a lot of workers in that sector

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Speaker 4: are here on those temporary work permits. And they are

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Speaker 4: We've talked to some some senior living communities and they

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Speaker 4: were saying that they are losing workers. People have left,

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Speaker 4: that they're afraid to come to work or that they're

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Speaker 4: unable to because of these efforts, and so it's having

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Speaker 4: an impact. They are not just in the sectors that

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Speaker 4: are reliant on undocumented workers.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought that was fascinating. Is one of the

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Speaker 2: single most common US job, something four million people working

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Speaker 2: as home health and personal care aids. And it's although

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Speaker 2: this foreign born about one in five of US workers,

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Speaker 2: but forty percent of home health aids foreign born. And Jonathan,

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Speaker 2: you've mentioned in some of your columns the uncertainty we've had.

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Speaker 2: As Kate mentioned, Donald Trump had even said he's concerned

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Speaker 2: about the impact. He's obviously hearing this from presumably people

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Speaker 2: in the hospitality business, his own business, are worried about this,

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Speaker 2: are complaining to him. And there was at one point

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Speaker 2: he seemed to be suggesting a softer path in those sectors,

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Speaker 2: but there was then a reversal remind us where we

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Speaker 2: actually are. I mean, there's just a lot of uncertainty

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Speaker 2: about the policy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, it speaks to sort of what a shock

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Speaker 1: this policy would represent to a number of sectors. And

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Speaker 1: as you say, it seems like the Trump administration is

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Speaker 1: hearing this from some of their supporters. Basically, what happened

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Speaker 1: is to Trump came out on social media and he said,

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Speaker 1: we're cognizant of the pressure that this is putting on

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Speaker 1: the agriculture sector, of course, a core base for President Trump.

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Speaker 1: We're cognizant of the fact that this is putting a

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Speaker 1: lot of pressure on hospitality, where President Trump himself has

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Speaker 1: a lot of experience. You know, it seems like President

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Speaker 1: Trump took all this on board and he vaguely said

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Speaker 1: we're going to do something about this. Subsequently, there was

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Speaker 1: some reporting that came out that suggested that the very

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Speaker 1: same day the order actually trickled down to Ice and

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Speaker 1: said hold on raids in these places. But it wasn't

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Speaker 1: more than a few days that went by that guidance

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Speaker 1: ended up being walked back. So it seems like the

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Speaker 1: administration is between Iraq and a hard place. It wants

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Speaker 1: to come off as a sort of tough on immigration,

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Speaker 1: tough on these institutions, tough on would be violators of

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Speaker 1: immigration laws. But at the same time time there does

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Speaker 1: seem to be a very personal understanding by President Trump

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Speaker 1: that these workers are just the way that these corners

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Speaker 1: of the economy work. One further thing, I just want

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Speaker 1: to underscore that back in the first Trump administration, there

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Speaker 1: was a lot of wonderful reporting by the New York

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Speaker 1: times about how Trump himself either directly or indirectly employed

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Speaker 1: many of these workers at his various clubs and so

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Speaker 1: on and so forth. There was even a really eye

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Speaker 1: opening report that the woman who cleaned his room and

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Speaker 1: made his bed was undocumented herself. So it really just

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Speaker 1: goes to show you that these people are part of

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Speaker 1: the fabric of the US economy, and if you were

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Speaker 1: to take them out of it, you could think what

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Speaker 1: you will about the long term impacts, but it's going

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Speaker 1: to deliver a shock.

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Speaker 4: And if I could just jump into one thing to

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Speaker 4: add there as well, is that these are industries that

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Speaker 4: have already faced chronic labor shortages, right, So that's part

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Speaker 4: of the you know, the idea I think for the

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Speaker 4: administration is if immigrants weren't taking these jobs, there are

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Speaker 4: all these other people who would be willing to step

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Speaker 4: in and take them. And I think that there are

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Speaker 4: a lot of people with a lot of reason to

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Speaker 4: be skeptical that's the case unless there are other reforms

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Speaker 4: or other changes that happen that could make legal immigration easier.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because we know unemployment is extremely low, and as

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Speaker 2: a point we made earlier that a large share of

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Speaker 2: the employment growth possibly all the employment growth in the

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Speaker 2: last few years has been from immigrants because of a

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Speaker 2: tight labor market. Kate, you've taken us onto the next

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Speaker 2: year or so economic impact. How much do you have

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Speaker 2: a sense that this is on the Federal reserves the

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Speaker 2: Central Bank's radar.

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Speaker 4: Well, I think it is definitely on their radar. And

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Speaker 4: when we have heard FED sher J. Powell talk about

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Speaker 4: all the uncertainty right now around the path ahead for

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Speaker 4: the Fed, he talked about broadly about government policies. Yes,

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Speaker 4: he talks about tariffs, and he's taken a lot of

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Speaker 4: heat for that that he's weighing on on them, but

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Speaker 4: he does make a point to say, it's not just tariffs.

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Speaker 4: It's tax the tax bill changes to the tax code,

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Speaker 4: it is or extending these tax cuts that we had previously,

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Speaker 4: and it's also immigration. And Powell talked a lot about immigration.

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Speaker 4: Actually last year, and even before then, there was a

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Speaker 4: lot of new research and analysis of the immigration data

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Speaker 4: that showed that actually this wave of immigration had helped

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Speaker 4: to expand the labor force and was helpful to the

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Speaker 4: FED in its bid to bring down inflation without driving

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Speaker 4: up unemployment. It helped to bolster growth. I mean, that

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Speaker 4: was something that we saw over several years after the pandemic,

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Speaker 4: but really picked up in recent years and might have

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Speaker 4: been part of the reason why the FED didn't have

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Speaker 4: a bigger downturn as was expected when it ramped up

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Speaker 4: interest rates, that inflation came down without this big weakening.

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Speaker 4: So now that is essentially going in reverse. And so

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Speaker 4: what we've seen so far this year is the size

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Speaker 4: of the work were shrunk in May and it was

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Speaker 4: the biggest back to back decline and the number of

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Speaker 4: foreign burned workers in the labor force since twenty twenty.

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Speaker 4: The outlook right now is for a smaller labor force,

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Speaker 4: which actually could actually end up limiting the rise in unemployment.

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Speaker 4: It gets a little bit complicated, but it's something that

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Speaker 4: the FED and the Powell has talked about, which is

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Speaker 4: that this just may be masking underlying weakness in the

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Speaker 4: economy if you have fewer workers in the labor force,

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Speaker 4: so I think that could potentially make their job harder

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Speaker 4: as they try to figure out what's actually going on here.

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Speaker 4: If there are just fewer workers competing for jobs, essentially

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Speaker 4: in businesses have slowed hiring or they're laying people off.

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Speaker 4: The underlying picture, it might not be clear that it's

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Speaker 4: looking as bad. So that's something that the FED has

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Speaker 4: to pay close attention to as well as it's deciding, hey,

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Speaker 4: is it time to start low wearing rates? How bad

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Speaker 4: is the labor marketer underlying demand? At the same time

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Speaker 4: that they're worried about potential inflation pressures from tariffs, and.

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Speaker 2: The inflation impact is interesting, and I guess it goes

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Speaker 2: to the long term objective of this policy. I mean,

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Speaker 2: of course, there'll be some who say this is driven

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Speaker 2: by the nativist populist agenda, but there's plenty of people

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Speaker 2: who would back a version of this approach. We had

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Speaker 2: one of them on the show very beginning of Trumponomics,

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Speaker 2: or in Cass the Conservative Economists. There are thinkers on

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Speaker 2: the right and on the left who feel that the

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Speaker 2: US economy has been too reliant on cheap immigrant labor

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Speaker 2: that has worsened wages and working conditions for a big

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Speaker 2: chunk of a working population, and that we need to

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Speaker 2: have a different model.

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Speaker 3: The reality is that illegal immigration overwhelmingly goes into the

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Speaker 3: labor market in a set of low wage sectors, and

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Speaker 3: those happen to be sectors where working conditions are not

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Speaker 3: very good where typically we have not seen significant investments

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Speaker 3: in productivity increases because there has always been an assumption

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Speaker 3: that we can find illegal immigrants to do the work.

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Speaker 2: And sort of accepted that there was going to be

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Speaker 2: short term costs. But then ultimately the market would respond

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Speaker 2: and you would see working conditions get better and more

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Speaker 2: Americans more attracted into these industries.

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Speaker 3: And so as those folks leave the labor market, what

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Speaker 3: we are going to see as employers having to offer

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Speaker 3: higher wages and better conditions to attract the workers that

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Speaker 3: they need, and that will be a very good thing

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Speaker 3: for workers. I'm always a little bit puzzled when the

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Speaker 3: exact same folks who celebrate the wonders of the free

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Speaker 3: market and competitive forces then turn around if we're talking

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Speaker 3: about immigration, say you know, oh, no, none of this works.

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Speaker 3: Businesses are designed to operate under constraints and solve the

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Speaker 3: problems put in front of them. And the problem is

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Speaker 3: for our economy, we have not put the problem of

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Speaker 3: provide a good product at a low price with the

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Speaker 3: workers in America as the problem to solve, and now

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Speaker 3: that is going to be the problem to solve. And

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Speaker 3: I'm actually somebody who has a lot of faith in

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Speaker 3: markets and businesses to solve that problem.

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Speaker 2: But Jonathan, I mean, first, I guess, do you buy

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Speaker 2: that sort of longer term view of what's going on here?

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Speaker 2: And when you're just looking at the industries that you're

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Speaker 2: familiar with, those sectors that we've talked about, how likely

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Speaker 2: is it that's going to happen that you'll see just

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Speaker 2: a ramping up of working conditions and combined with possibly

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Speaker 2: a bit of automation.

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Speaker 1: Well, first of all, I don't know that the evidence

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Speaker 1: exactly supports Orn's argument on that. I mean, phenomenal economists

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Speaker 1: David Card and George Borjas, who is now associated with

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Speaker 1: the Trump CEA have been studying this issue for decades

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Speaker 1: and decades, and what all of these studies find, both

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Speaker 1: sort of natural experiments and model based studies done by

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Speaker 1: George Borjas now with the CEA, they find sort of

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Speaker 1: small effects on the key population. What they sort of

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Speaker 1: disparaging the call unskilled native born workers. And you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't love the term, but a.

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Speaker 2: Small impact on employment, but also on wages, on the.

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Speaker 1: Real wages more specifically. But moving beyond that, I think

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Speaker 1: that the key question in the here and now is

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Speaker 1: a are there going to be shocks and be like, is

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Speaker 1: there a smooth path to move beyond the shocks? And so,

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Speaker 1: for a I'm sure there are going to be shocks, because,

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Speaker 1: as we've talked about earlier in this conversation, we have

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Speaker 1: all these industries that Kate's talked about, healthcare, construction, agriculture, leisure,

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Speaker 1: and hospitality that, for better or worse, we have built

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Speaker 1: these industries in the United States to depend on this

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Speaker 1: immigrant labor, specific specifically that quote unquote low skilled immigrant labor.

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Speaker 1: It's the way our economy works. And then the subsequent

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Speaker 1: question is there a smooth and easy way to move

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Speaker 1: on from that? So let's just take the example of construction,

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Speaker 1: and construction is so important because everybody on every side

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Speaker 1: of the political aisle will acknowledge that there's a massive

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Speaker 1: housing deficit in the United States and that critical for

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Speaker 1: better quality of life for the entire population is to

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Speaker 1: build more housing. Okay, yes, we need productivity boosters in

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Speaker 1: that sector. Yes, we need to be doing more off

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Speaker 1: site manufacturing. We need to be bringing in these pre

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Speaker 1: fabricated components, entire walls with the insulation built in. We

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Speaker 1: need to get a lot more productive in that sector

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Speaker 1: in the way that some Scandinavian economies have gotten, or

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Speaker 1: the Germans or the Japanese. But guess what, that alone

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Speaker 1: is not going to help us solve the deficit. We

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Speaker 1: need the productivity enhancements and we need the immigrant labor.

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Speaker 1: Let's move over to agriculture. I am fairly bullish on

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Speaker 1: the possibility to bring in machines that are going to

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Speaker 1: pick the grapes that make our wine and whatever, pick

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Speaker 1: our strawberries, but the robepots just aren't good enough to

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Speaker 1: pick everything that we want to eat in this country.

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Speaker 1: Think about like these sinnowy trees that a lot of

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Speaker 1: fruits grow on. It's really hard to get a big

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Speaker 1: machine in between those trees in these orchards. Right. So,

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of problems that still haven't been solved.

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Speaker 1: And we can have these sort of sci fi fantasies that,

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Speaker 1: like the humanoid robots that Tesla is manufacturing, are going

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Speaker 1: to solve all of these problems, but they can't solve

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Speaker 1: them in the here and now, and I'm fairly confident

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Speaker 1: that they're not going to solve them even in the

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Speaker 1: medium term. And in the meantime, we need labor to

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Speaker 1: solve the problem for us to put food on the table.

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Speaker 2: And of course, yeah, and the test is not going

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Speaker 2: to solve it if he's Elon Musk has been deported,

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Speaker 2: But that's a whole other we come back full circle. Okay,

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Speaker 2: final question to UK Federal Reserve and economists generally are

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Speaker 2: looking at the economy and thinking about the impact of tariffs,

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Speaker 2: which is inflationary. If the bottom line of this policy,

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Speaker 2: the sort of ultimate economic impact, whatever the political ramifications

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Speaker 2: may be, is that we have higher wages, labor shortages,

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Speaker 2: and yes, higher inflation. Do you think there's a chance

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Speaker 2: that the administration has to soften its approach or is

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Speaker 2: this just too central to the agenda.

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Speaker 4: That's the big question, right. I wish I could answer it,

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Speaker 4: but I think that there's a chance. Sure, there's a chance.

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Speaker 4: I think it might come down to it, as it

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Speaker 4: always does, and the Trump administration who has more influence

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Speaker 4: or who maybe has the president's ear last, I think

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Speaker 4: that I think the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant would probably

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Speaker 4: be the voice to deliver that message right if things

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Speaker 4: were getting there, if it was getting that bad for

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Speaker 4: the economy, Although as we've seen with tariffs, you know,

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Speaker 4: President Trump seems to be pretty happy just blaming the

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Speaker 4: FED and saying the FED should lower rates and that

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Speaker 4: will help support the economy. So maybe that's the tack

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Speaker 4: you would take. Of course, he'll only be able to

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Speaker 4: do that for so much longer. He'll be naming a

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Speaker 4: new FED shair and maybe that comes up. You know,

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Speaker 4: maybe he will he said he wants somebody who's going

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Speaker 4: to lower rates. Maybe this is or should be part

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Speaker 4: of the conversation about how would the next FED chair

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Speaker 4: view this immigration issue and what could the FED do

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Speaker 4: to fix that problem. So that's another way. That's another

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Speaker 4: way around it. But but I think for now it

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Speaker 4: certainly seems, as Jonathan was pointing out, that they're you know,

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Speaker 4: when there has been an effort to be more to

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Speaker 4: I guess ease off a little bit. That the folks

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Speaker 4: who are those immigration hardliners, if we want to call them,

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Speaker 4: that have come right back in and managed to get

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Speaker 4: the president back on the track that they think he

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Speaker 4: ought to be on.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes me think so the sort of forward

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Speaker 2: indicators that we have to develop for this Trump and economy,

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Speaker 2: it's not just what we've noticed in the labor market.

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Speaker 2: There has been a shrinking proportion of foreign born in

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Speaker 2: the labor numbers just in the last few months, which

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Speaker 2: shows something about that chilling effect. But maybe we also

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Speaker 2: ought to be monitoring how well Scott Bessent is getting

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Speaker 2: on with Stephen Miller and who's had you know which

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Speaker 2: of them has more meetings with Donald Trump? Kate Davidson,

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Speaker 2: Jonathan Levine, Thank you so much, thank you, thank you,

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Speaker 2: thanks for listening to Trump and Nomics from Bloomberg. It

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Speaker 2: was hosted by me Stephanie Flanders. I was joined by

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Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Jonathan Levin and Kate Davidson. Trump and Noomics is

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Speaker 2: produced by Summer, Sadi and Moses and with help from

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Speaker 2: Amy Keene and special thanks to Rachel Lewis Chrisky. Sound

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Speaker 2: designs by Blake Maples and the head of Bloomberg podcast

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Speaker 2: is Sage Bowman. To help others find the show and

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