Former President Donald J. Trump’s proposals to deport millions of migrants and impose new tariffs on imports from around the world would slash U.S. economic growth and employment and cause inflation to rebound sharply, according to a new analysis published on Thursday by the nonpartisan Peterson Institute for International Economics.
That analysis also assumes that Mr. Trump would try to encroach on the independence of the Federal Reserve. He has not floated such a proposal but has suggested that presidents should have input into the central bank’s policies and in the past tried to publicly push the Fed to lower interest rates.
The assessment of Mr. Trump’s policies was published days after the Republican presidential candidate pitched his plan to create a manufacturing “renaissance” in America by cutting corporate taxes and regulations and increasing tariffs by as much as 200 percent. Economists have been skeptical about the viability of many of Mr. Trump’s proposals, and some of them could be difficult to enact. But the new report argued that if taken together, the policies would inflict significant damage on the U.S. economy.
“While Trump promises to ‘make the foreigners pay,’ our analysis shows his policies will end up making Americans pay the most,” Warwick J. McKibbin, Megan Hogan and Marcus Noland wrote in their report.
The study from the Peterson Institute, which tends to favor free trade, examined the effects of three prominent parts of Mr. Trump’s agenda: deporting 8.3 million unauthorized migrants, levying 10 percent tariffs on all imports and 60 percent tariffs on imports from China, and eroding the Federal Reserve’s independence by allowing the president to influence interest rate policy.
The study suggested that Mr. Trump wants to weaken the Fed’s independence, citing a Wall Street Journal article that said his allies were drawing up a plan to blunt the central bank’s freedom to freely set interest rates. It also noted that Mr. Trump has said he believes presidents should have a “say” on interest rate policy.
Mr. Trump has not endorsed a plan to curb the Fed’s independence, and he has walked back his comments on weighing in on rates, saying that it would not mean that he would be “calling the shots.”
The economists outlined a worst-case scenario of the combined effects of the policies to demonstrate how they could backfire. They laid out a grim scenario in which businesses are forced to raise wages and prices to make up for lost migrant workers and consumers face higher prices as a result of tariffs on imports and retaliation from other countries.
They also assumed that the Federal Reserve would be constrained from raising interest rates to tame inflation. This would make investments in the U.S. economy more risky, they predicted, and lead investors to park their money in other countries.
If all of Mr. Trump’s economic plans came to fruition, the study projected that by 2028 consumer prices would be as much as 28 percent higher than current forecasts, with the inflation rate peaking a 9.3 percent. Gross domestic product could be 9.7 percent lower, shrinking output and dampening consumer demand. And employment — as measured by hours worked — could be down 9 percent because of the shock to the labor supply.
Mr. Trump’s policies could end up harming the sectors that he has committed to reviving. The economists found that his plans would be particularly damaging to U.S. manufacturing and agriculture, particularly if American trading partners responded with their own higher tariffs.
Despite Mr. Trump’s suggestion this week that this new industrial strategy would draw workers and businesses from other countries, it could actually aid America’s economic competitors.
“He proposes to right the scales through policies of mass deportations, trade protection and influence over the Fed,” the economists said of Mr. Trump. “These interventions reduce G.D.P. and boost inflation in the United States, while in some cases conferring benefits on other economies.”
Both Mr. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, have been rolling out a blitz of economic plans in recent weeks as they look to court voters ahead of Election Day in November.
During a speech in Georgia on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said this “new American industrialism” would create jobs, raise wages and “make the United States into a manufacturing powerhouse like it used to be many years ago.”
This week, Ms. Harris laid out her vision for helping Americans build wealth while lowering costs. Economists have also raised questions about her plans to curb inflation by cracking down on corporate price gouging, and some have expressed concern about the impact of her plan to give up to $25,000 to first-time home buyers for down payments.
The Peterson Institute report did not dig deeply into the fiscal implications of Mr. Trump’s proposals and assumed that the 2017 tax cuts he enacted would be extended.
Mr. Trump has called for extending those tax cuts. But he also wants to reduce the corporate tax rate to 15 percent from 21 percent for companies that make their products in the United States, and he has called for eliminating taxes on overtime pay, tips and Social Security benefits.
Extending the 2017 tax cuts could add $5 trillion to deficits over a decade. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that eliminating taxes on overtime pay could cost $6 trillion over 10 years. The proposals to lower the corporate tax rate could cost $200 billion, and getting rid of taxes on tip income could cost as much as $250 billion.
Mr. Trump has said his policies would not add to the national debt and would be paid for by the surge in economic growth that they would spur.
However, the Peterson Institute report found that the deportation policy alone would result in no economic growth occurring during Mr. Trump’s second term.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Many economists agree that a Trump win could lead to higher inflation and slower growth, though there is disagreement about the magnitudes, and the Peterson estimates are on the high side. For instance, economists at Moody’s have estimated that Mr. Trump’s policies would push inflation up notably, but not as much as the Peterson estimates suggest.
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