Earlier this year, Donald Trump was still extremely content with the employment figures that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) draws up every month. The figures for February, the first full work month of the president, were reason to claim “that we created all those jobs – and we just started.” A month later cheese His White House after the ‘Job Report’ for March that this “pulverizes expectations [..] Now that the Golden Age of America is coming ”. In May “Provided” the BLS that the economy gets “new life,” and in June Trump spoke of “a great job report.”
Last weekend the appreciation suddenly turned into distrust. Trump dismissed top official Erika Mcentarfer as head of the statistics agency, because this would have ‘manipulated’ the figures. Those in July were disappointing and those of previous months were adjusted downwards. A correction that is implemented more often, but Trump suggested a political motive: “They want to leave me and the Republicans badly on it.” For the record: Mcentarfer was nominated by Trumps predecessor Biden, but appointed with broad support from both parties.
Her Congé fits in Trumps wider attack on the federal state apparatus. Project 2025the conservative policy document that counts as a blueprint for his second president period, argues that “the civil servant state is being tackled with a demolition ball”. With every change of power in Washington, a top layer of approximately four thousand officials is replaced by the new government party. Project 2025 also suggests that tens of thousands of civil servants replace with loyalists in the middle management.
That rigorous intervention must prevent a repetition of Trumps first presidency (2017-2021), in which he received a reply from top officials, the army leadership, lawyers or security services. For example, a healthy state apparatus functions, but Trump saw sabotage through the so -called Deep State. This second term he tries the whole Trías Politica to impose his will; He cannot use contradiction.
Since his return to power, Washington’s bureaucracy has been constantly intimidated, bullied and threatened with mass layouts, political cleansing and wild cuts. The damage to that demolition campaign extends much further than just tens of thousands of fired officials. From young talents who had dreamed their career very differently at the government, to veterans with decades of file knowledge: the best officials are now left voluntarily.
It is known from authoritarian countries that their statistics must be read with the necessary skepticism. For the US, on the other hand, it was – at least to date – that official figures are created in an apolitical way. Now investors and other market parties must also take into account at the US that statistics and other data no longer tell the truth.
Trump himself sees such figures as a political weapon, it turned out during his election campaigns. For example, he mentioned job reports in 2016 and 2024, when they contain good news (and there were democrats in the White House) ‘fake’ and ‘manipulated’. Will Trump now demand rosy statistics as president himself in the run -up to the 2026 congress elections? Or will civil servants – now intimidated into doctrinal weasels – polish them themselves?
Trumps intervened at the BLS stands for more than a resentful leader who does not tolerate unwelcome news or contradiction. With his procedure, Trump also hits another dent in the international reputation of the United States. He is already under pressure by his attacks on the democratic constitutional state, his pressure on central bank chairman Jerome Powell to lower interest rates and by his zigzagging trade policy. This distrust expresses itself in a decreasing demand for long -term government bonds and a falling dollar rate.
The American currency and national debt remain the cornerstone of the global financial system for the time being. But they became that because the US could be seen as a reliable and credit -worthy nation for a long time. Trump is now accumulating that economic, military and geopolitical power, which built up the country throughout the last century, is now accumulating Trump to enforce loyalty from everyone. After the Domestic already elite universities, law firms and media companies went down for him, Western trading partners such as the EU and NATO allies for Trumps also bend.
Such a knee valley for his blackmail may seem the least worst option, but will also strengthen the president in his autocratic course. The damage he causes is now permanent: an in -depth politized and less skilled government. Long after Trump, the world will not be able to trust the US as before.