Leading economists have warned that Donald Trump’s sacking of the head of the US labour statistics agency puts the president in the league of strongmen leaders such as Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
US economists polled by the Kent A Clark Center for Global Markets at the University of Chicago this week said there was no evidence to suggest that the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs figures displayed favouritism to either Republicans or Democrats. Many said Trump’s attacks on US economic institutions represented a serious threat to the country’s official statistics.
The warnings, which were shared with the Financial Times ahead of publication, come after Trump last Friday fired Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the BLS, after the July US jobs report showed a sharp slowdown in hiring over the summer.