Matthew Lynn is a financial columnist and author. He writes for the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator in London.
To its harsher critics, the Trump White House, with its short attention span and propensity for throwing tantrums, gives the impression that it’s less a seat of power than a day care center for toddlers. That soon might appear more than metaphorically true: The administration is witnessing a mini baby boom. Sure, that will satisfy its pronatalist champions who want to reverse America’s falling birth rate. Just one problem. The White House can’t make babies great again — and there is no point in even trying.
The administration is, at least, leading from the front. Second lady Usha Vance is expecting her fourth child, while White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is expecting her second, and Katie Miller, wife of a deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, her fourth. It is hard to escape the suspicion that those may all be ideological as well as personal decisions. Vice President JD Vance has been one of the most vocal MAGA leaders in calling for policies to boost the birth rate. “I want more babies in the United States of America,” he told the March for Life last year. Likewise, President Donald Trump, with characteristic good taste, once said he wants to be the “fertilization president,” and has backed such policies as a $5,000 baby bonus. With five children of his own, no one could accuse him of not doing his bit.
In fairness, it is a serious issue. The U.S. fertility rate hit a record low of 1.6 average births per woman in 2024, putting it on a par with most of Europe. The rate was 2.1 in 2007 and 3.5 in the early 1960s. If, as Whitney Houston sang, the children are our future, then the United States doesn’t have one. Demographic decline is a huge economic and social challenge, and one that any serious government needs to address. Once birth rates fall below 2, workers are increasingly in short supply, welfare bills soar, health care costs spiral and, perhaps worst of all, the elderly acquire such electoral power that 20- and 30-somethings are crushed by the costs of supporting their parents and grandparents. A strong nation needs to replace itself.
Unfortunately, however, there is almost nothing that any government can do that will shift the dial. Consider France. Whether from the left or the right, governments in Paris have always agreed on one point: What the world really needs is more French people. It has a long tradition of pro-natalist policies aimed at making that happen. There are income tax deductions for larger families, generous maternity leave policies and abundant free child care. Given that 70 percent of French families with three or more children end up paying no income tax, that third bébé is virtually a profit center. And yet, France’s birth rate fell to 1.56 in 2025, its lowest level since 1918. Studies cited by the Cato Institute suggest that it would cost $250 billion a year to raise the U.S. birth rate by just 0.2 percent.
The MAGA movement is probably hoping to encourage well-educated families in the classier suburbs to add to their broods, rather than mothers motivated by bigger government checks. But that’s a losing proposition. In developed economies, having an additional child is such a huge, life-changing decision that there is virtually nothing the government can do to influence it one way or the other.
The smarter policy is to spend money on coping with a shrinking population. The left, along with most of the mainstream economic establishment, has a simple answer: Encourage immigration. But mass unskilled immigration has proved socially challenging, even for a country built on it. It undermines communities, undercuts wages for blue collar workers and strains infrastructure. It is hardly the MAGA solution.
It would be far better to have a mix of policies that made it easier for a country with a low birth rate to thrive. Such as? Encourage automation so that robots and machines can do the work of those 20-somethings who were never born. Extend careers with policies encouraging people to work well into their 70s or even 80s. And control the cost of health care, as the administration is trying with its attempts to make the pharmaceutical giants lower their prices. America can’t afford an aging population and some of the highest drug prices in the world.
Japan has had a falling population since 2008, and has resisted immigration as a fix. Its economy has its problems, but so does everyone else’s. With more elderly working and excellent health care, overall it is doing just fine. GDP per capita, the key metric once the population falls, is rising; the stock market is hitting all-time highs; and corporate giants such as Toyota and Sony are doing well. It is hardly a catastrophe.
The White House may be trying to make babies great again. But it is going to fail, no matter how hard its leading figures try to lead by example. The task is beyond government. Instead of trying to annex Greenland or build a new ballroom, the Trump administration should be devoting more energy and creativity to working out ways to cope with fewer people.
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