Trump, Donald J

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    In Nevada, Economy Tops Issues as Unemployment Remains High

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    The state is among a handful that will decide the presidential contest, and workers have felt increased prices at the grocery store and gas station.Sold-out shows along the Strip. Crews constructing a course for a major Formula 1 race. A record number of passengers at Harry Reid International Airport.For much of the past year, Las Vegas, the anchor of Nevada’s economy, has watched in delight as visitors have flocked to town for conventions, football games and summer pool parties, further solidifying its rebound from the doldrums after the pandemic shutdowns.But statewide, the economy is still burdened by high unemployment and higher costs of living — twin pocketbook struggles that animate voters here in one of a handful of states expected to decide the November presidential election.And about a quarter of Nevada voters in a New York Times/Siena College poll last month named the economy as their top issue. It was cited nearly twice as often as any other concern, comparable to findings in other swing states.A topic with particular resonance among Nevada workers — eliminating federal taxation on tips — burst into the national discourse after former President Donald J. Trump told a crowd in Las Vegas that he intended to do away with the practice if elected. He was inspired, Mr. Trump has said, by a conversation with a waitress in the city.His opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, later endorsed the idea during a campaign stop in Las Vegas, but paired the proposal with a promise to raise the federal minimum wage.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump and Democrats Agree: U.S. Needs a National Wealth Fund for Investments

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    Donald Trump has suggested he wants one, and the White House indicated that it has been quietly working on a proposal to set one up.Former President Donald J. Trump said a sovereign wealth fund would generate so much profit that it would help pay down the national debt.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesA Biden-Harris administration fund would be focused on supply chain resilience, technological pre-eminence and energy security, a White House official said.Eric Lee/The New York TimesFormer President Donald J. Trump and the Biden-Harris administration have little common ground on the policy front, but one unexpected area of agreement is the idea that the United States might be ready for a sovereign wealth fund.Such government investment vehicles are popular in Asia and the Middle East. They allow countries like China and Saudi Arabia to direct their budget surpluses toward a wide range of investments and wield their financial influence around the world.While some individual states have their own versions of wealth funds, the United States, which runs large budget deficits, has never pursued one.Last week, Mr. Trump suggested during a speech at the Economic Club of New York that, if elected, he would like to create an American sovereign wealth fund that could be used “to invest in great national endeavors for the benefit of all of the American people.” After Mr. Trump’s remarks, the White House indicated that senior officials had been quietly working for months on a proposal for a sovereign wealth fund that Mr. Biden and his cabinet could review.Despite the newly bipartisan appeal of a national sovereign wealth fund, creating one might not be so simple. It would need the approval of Congress, where lawmakers are likely to be skeptical about authorizing the creation of a fund that could essentially circumvent its own powers to approve federal spending. And then there is the matter of how a nation with perpetual deficits would fund such an investment vehicle.“Establishing a U.S. S.W.F. would raise highly complex technical and conceptual questions and on its face would appear to be a dubious value proposition for America,” said Mark Sobel, a former Treasury official who is now the U.S. chairman of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum. “None of the tough questions has been answered so far.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump’s Promises to Cut Inflation Are Unrealistic, Many Economists Say

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    Economists and analysts are dubious of Trump’s promises to slash gas prices or prod interest rates lower.As he seeks to return to the White House, former President Donald J. Trump has pledged to cut Americans’ energy costs in half in the span of a year, part of a plan to reduce inflation and drive mortgage rates back toward record lows.But economists and analysts — and Mr. Trump’s own record from his first term — suggest that it is unlikely that Mr. Trump can deliver on those promises.Mr. Trump’s vow to dramatically reduce Americans’ cost of living hinges in part on his plans to quickly expand oil and gas drilling and reduce government impediments to power plant construction, which he says would slash energy bills by “more than half.” As prices fall, he regularly states, interest rates will come down, along with mortgage rates.But Mr. Trump has not cited modeling or other economic analysis to support his assertions. Economic research and historical experience suggest that presidents have only a limited effect on locally regulated electric utilities or on the cost of oil, which is a globally traded commodity.“He doesn’t really have the tools to lower oil prices enough to cut gasoline prices in half,” said Steven Kamin, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and former Federal Reserve economist.In all, experts and past evidence suggest that Mr. Trump is over-promising on key economic issues related to prices and interest rates. And that fits with a pattern he established during his earlier campaigns — one in which he emphasizes big, catchy outcomes with little attention to costs or how he might make good on his pledges.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    For Trump, Tariffs Are the Solution to Almost Any Problem

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    The former president has proposed using tariffs to fund child care, boost manufacturing, quell immigration and encourage use of the dollar. Economists are skeptical.It has been more than five years since former President Donald J. Trump called himself a “Tariff Man,” but since then, his enthusiasm for tariffs seems only to have grown.Mr. Trump has long maintained that imposing tariffs on foreign products can protect American factories, narrow the gap between what the United States exports and what it imports, and bring uncooperative foreign governments to heel. While in office, Mr. Trump used the threat of tariffs to try to convince Mexico to stop the flow of undocumented immigrants across the U.S. border, and to sway China to enter into a trade deal with the United States.But in recent weeks, Mr. Trump has made even more expansive claims about the power of tariffs, including that they will help pay for child care, combat inflation, finance a U.S. sovereign wealth fund and help preserve the dollar’s pre-eminent role in the global economy.Economists have been skeptical of many of these assertions. While tariffs generate some level of revenue, in many cases they could create only a small amount of the funding needed to pursue some of the goals that Mr. Trump has outlined. In other cases, they say, tariffs could actually backfire on the U.S. economy, by inviting retaliation from foreign governments and raising costs for consumers.“Trump seems drawn to trade tariffs as a bargaining tool with other countries because tariffs have powerful domestic political symbolism, are much easier to turn on and off than financial sanctions and can be tweaked with shifting circumstances,” said Eswar Prasad, a trade economist at Cornell University.“The irony is that using tariffs to punish countries that use unfair trade practices or are trying to reduce their dependence on the dollar is likely to end up hurting the U.S. economy and consumers,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Calls for an Efficiency Commission, an Idea Pushed by Elon Musk

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    Former President Donald J. Trump called for the creation of a government efficiency commission in an economic speech in New York on Thursday, adopting a policy idea that was pitched to him by the billionaire businessman Elon Musk.Mr. Trump said that Mr. Musk would also lead the commission, which would conduct a sweeping audit of the federal government and recommend “drastic reforms” for cutting waste. He said the commission would save “trillions of dollars.”In a wide-ranging and sometimes meandering speech that lasted more than an hour, Mr. Trump recast his first-term record as an economic miracle and renewed his pitch for lowering taxes and raising tariffs on imports, often disregarding some of the potential implications of his new proposals.The trade wars that Mr. Trump started had painful consequences for American farmers, and the new tariffs that he called for would also likely trigger backlash and retaliation from other countries. Mr. Trump claimed that his new tax cuts would be paid for by spurring economic growth, but the 2017 tax cuts he enacted increased the national debt and his growth projections never panned out.Mr. Trump’s embrace of the concept of a government efficiency commission — a favorite Washington solution for delaying dealing with hard problems — comes as he is trying to define how his stewardship of the economy would differ from that of his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. He has assailed her economic vision as one that would saddle the economy with wasteful spending and burdensome regulations.During his speech, Mr. Trump also vowed to eliminate 10 existing government regulations for every new regulation added under his potential new administration. Mr. Trump — who during his presidency issued an executive order vowing a similar two-for-one rule — argued that the cost of regulations was being passed onto consumers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Has the Spread of Tipping Reached Its Limit? Don’t Count on It.

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    Americans are being asked to tip more often and in more places than ever before: at fast food counters and corner stores, at auto garages and carwashes, even at self-checkout kiosks. That has rankled many customers and divided both employers and tipped workers.It may soon get worse. Both major-party presidential candidates have embraced proposals to eliminate income taxes on tips, a move that would, in effect, subsidize tipping and prompt more businesses to rely on it.Economists across the political spectrum have panned the tax idea, arguing that it is unfair — favoring one set of low-wage workers over others — and could have unintended consequences. Even some tipped workers and groups that represent them are skeptical, worrying that over the long term the policy could result in lower pay.But the debate alone underscores how service-sector workers have emerged from the pandemic as an economically and politically potent force. The spread of tipping in recent years was, in part, a result of the intense demand for workers, and the leverage it gave them. The presidential candidates’ dueling proposals signal that they see the nation’s roughly four million tipped workers as a constituency worth wooing.“I do think it’s a reflection of this change in which people are finally hearing and recognizing that these workers matter,” said Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage, an advocacy organization. “Tipped workers had never seen their needs named in any way by any presidential candidate, ever.”Ms. Jayaraman isn’t a fan of the tax exemption idea, though she is optimistic that the attention being paid to the issue could lead to policies she considers more important. One is the elimination of the subminimum wage, which allows businesses in some states to pay workers as little as $2.13 an hour as long as they receive enough in tips to bring them up to the full minimum wage.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    What Across-the-Board Tariffs Could Mean for the Global Economy

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    Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has floated the idea of a 10 percent tariff on all U.S. imports, a plan that economists say could badly damage trade.Former President Donald J. Trump blames the global trading system for inflicting a long list of ills on the American economy including lost jobs, closed foreign markets and an overvalued dollar.The remedy, he insists, is simple: tariffs. Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, has repeatedly said he would raise tariffs if elected. China, a geopolitical and economic rival, would face an additional 50 or 60 percent tariff on its exports to the United States. He has also floated the idea of a 10 to 20 percent surcharge on exports from the rest of the world.Although smaller than the percentage proposed for Chinese exports, an across-the-board tariff has the potential to deliver a much more devastating jolt to world trade, many economists warn.Such a surcharge would not distinguish between rivals and allies, critical necessities and nonessentials, ailing industries and superstars, or countries adhering to trade treaties and those violating them. (Democrats have also embraced tariffs as a policy tool, but Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has criticized Mr. Trump’s universal approach as inflationary.)Here is what you need to know about the idea of a universal tariff on all imports.In 1971, President Richard M. Nixon levied a 10 percent surcharge on all taxable imports.Associated PressWhat are the historical precedents?Mr. Trump’s broad-brush tariffs frequently evoke comparisons with the destructive global trade war that the United States helped to initiate in the 1930s with the Smoot-Hawley tariffs passed by Congress. The Senate Historical Office has called that law “among the most catastrophic acts in congressional history.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Harris and Trump Embrace Tariffs

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    Both Democrats and Republicans are expressing support for tariffs to protect American industry, reversing decades of trade thinking in Washington.When Donald J. Trump ran for president in 2016, there was not much love for tariffs in Washington. Many Republicans and Democrats believed that putting levies on imports created economic inefficiencies and that freer trade was the best recipe for growth.That view has largely fallen out of fashion in 2024. While Mr. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, differ greatly in their campaign proposals, both of their parties are increasingly embracing tariffs as an essential tool in protecting American manufacturers from Chinese and other global competitors.It has been a sharp reversal from previous decades, when most politicians fought to lower tariffs rather than raise them. But the loss of American manufacturing jobs as a result of globalization and China’s focus on churning out cheap exports have created a bipartisan backlash against more open trade. Given that Mr. Trump’s 2016 win capitalized on such sentiments, Democrats have been striving to avoid losing voters opposed to free trade.“On economic policy and trade issues, you have both major parties moving in the same direction,” said Nick Iacovella, a senior vice president at the Coalition for a Prosperous America, which advocates tariffs and domestic investments in industry.Mr. Iacovella said that Mr. Trump would most likely go further on tariffs than Ms. Harris would, but that no matter who won the election “it’s still going to be a tariffs administration, and an industrial policy one.”Ms. Harris has sought to differentiate herself from Mr. Trump’s trade proposals, which include tariffs of 10 percent to 20 percent on most imports, as well as levies of more than 60 percent on China. Many economists say that level of tariffs would drive up prices for consumers, since companies would be likely to pass on higher import costs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More