July 19, 2026

Trump Economy

JUST IN: Trump Administration Threatens MASS LAYOFFS If Government Shuts Down– wltreport.com
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This could be very big…

Ahead of a possible government shutdown on October 1st, the White House Office of Management and Budget has instructed federal agencies to prepare for mass layoffs.

Thousands of federal employees — specifically in agencies that lack funding and don’t align with President Trump’s goals — could permanently lose their jobs if the shutdown happens.

Here are the details:

Return of the Cypress: Iran's Foreign Policy Ambitions in Central ...

Return of the Cypress: Iran's Foreign Policy Ambitions in Central ...

Trump, Eye On Central Asia, Clinches $12B In Deals With Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan– www.rferl.org
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US President Donald Trump has clinched $12 billion in trade deals with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan amid a push to deepen economic ties with the strategic Central Asian region.

Uzbekistan agreed to buy 22 787 airplanes from Chicago-based Boeing for more than $8 billion, Trump said in a September 22 post on Truth Social.

“We will continue to work together on many more items!” Trump said in the post.

Meanwhile, Kazakhstan signed an agreement to buy 300 US locomotives as well as other rail equipment from Pennsylvania-based Wabtec Corporation for $4.2 billion. The US Commerce Department described it as the largest rail deal in U.S. history.

“This landmark deal advances US manufacturing jobs and accelerates growth, opportunity, and connectivity in America and Central Asia,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said during a signing ceremony in New York with Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev.

Trump earlier in the day spoke by phone with Toqaev, who is in the United States to attend the UN General Assembly.

Trump is seeking to strengthen trade and investment ties with resource-rich Central Asia as he focuses on ending US dependence on China for critical minerals, including rare earths.

Global Perspectives with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell ...

Global Perspectives with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell ...

Federal Reserve Cuts Rates for First Time in 2025– legalinsurrection.com
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Welp, it only took numerous poor inflation reports for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates!

From Fox Business:

Following the central bank’s decision to cut rates for the first time since December 2024, the federal funds rate will sit at a new range of 4% to 4.25%. The cut comes after the Fed left rates unchanged at its first five meetings this year amid economic uncertainty.

Policymakers have been monitoring economic data which has shown a slowdown in hiring as businesses grapple with shifts in trade and immigration policy, while inflation has remained elevated and trended higher in recent months as tariff-related price hikes filter through into inflation data.

That dynamic has presented a challenge for policymakers in achieving both of the goals of the Fed’s dual mandate to promote maximum employment and stable prices in line with the Fed’s 2% inflation target.

Zoom in on Tim Cook: Chief Executive Officer of Apple

Zoom in on Tim Cook: Chief Executive Officer of Apple

Tim Cook Says Apple Will Invest $600 Billion In US Manufacturing, Creating A ‘Domino Effect’ As iPhone 17 Pre-Orders Show Strong Momentum – Yahoo Finance
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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Tim Cook said the company’s record $600 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing over the next four years will benefit 79 factories nationwide and spark a “domino effect” of growth, as early data points to strong iPhone 17 demand.

In an interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer that was published on Monday, Cook focused on Apple’s unprecedented domestic investment plan.

“We can’t be everywhere. I wish we could, but we are putting $600 billion to work in the next four years,” Cook said. “And so it is an extraordinary commitment. And there’s 79 factories across the U.S. that will benefit from this.”

Global Perspectives with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell ...

Global Perspectives with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell ...

Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell Expected to Cut Rates This Week– townhall.com
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The Federal Reserve is poised to deliver its first rate cut of 2025 on Wednesday, even as policymakers weigh the inflationary impact of new tariffs and lackluster labor market data, according to Fox Business. The Federal Open Market Committee is expected to trim rates by 25 basis points, the first cut since December 2024, bringing the target range down to 4.00 to 4.25 percent. Markets have already priced in the move, with the CME FedWatch tool showing a 96 percent probability of a quarter-point cut with just 4 percent odds of a deeper half-point reduction.

JD Foster: Trump Is Right In Calling For The End To Quarterly Reporting– dailycaller.com
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Sometimes, it’s the little things. Sometimes, it’s bigger things. This time it’s the quarterly earnings report required by law of America’s publicly traded companies. And it’s President Trump suggesting on Truth Social that we should do away with quarterly earnings statements in favor of bi-annual statements. He’s right.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires publicly traded companies to report their earnings quarterly. In contrast, the hyper-regulative European Union and United Kingdom require six-month reporting, though corporations are allowed to make quarterly statements if they want.

Quarterly reporting is just one of the hundreds of rules U.S. publicly traded companies face that privately held companies don’t. Nearly all of these rules make some sense in isolation, but collectively they represent an enormous burden, one effect of which is that even as the American economy has grown steadily over the years, the number of publicly traded companies had fallen by half. Houston, we have a problem.

Quarterly reporting is expensive to the corporation and a major time burden for senior management. These are relative nuisances.

ASEAN in the Global Economy: A Half-Century Journey

ASEAN in the Global Economy: A Half-Century Journey

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says the economy ‘is weakening’– www.cnbc.com
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JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said that a Labor Department report released Tuesday confirmed that the U.S. economy is slowing down.

The department revised lower its nonfarm payrolls data for the year through March 2025 by 911,000 jobs from initial estimates. That was on the high side of Wall Street’s expectations for a downward shift and the biggest revision in more than two decades.

“I think the economy is weakening,” Dimon said. “Whether it’s on the way to recession or just weakening, I don’t know.”

The revision, showing the world’s largest economy produced far fewer jobs than thought, follows a report indicating employment growth had slowed to a near halt in July, adding just 73,000 jobs. President Donald Trump fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner last month hours after the release of that report.

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In a striking turn of events, several senior banking executives have broken their long-standing silence, revealing that political coercion, not just regulatory prudence, steered decisions about whose bank accounts to close and services to deny.

Their admissions come on the heels of President Donald Trump’s executive order, Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans, issued on August 7, 2025, which explicitly outlaws politicized or unlawful debanking and prohibits the nebulous use of “reputational risk” as justification for denying service.

Until now, institutions like JPMorgan, Bank of America, CitiGroup, and PNC have staunchly defended their practices, insisting that account closures rested solely on objective criteria. But in an extraordinary shift, these same banks through unnamed executives quoted by Fox News Digital have now voiced concerns about the “very, very real” pressure they felt from federal regulators under the Obama and Biden administrations.

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Goldman Sachs is taking the heat for its call that heavier tariff-induced consumer inflation is ahead, but it’s far from alone in that view among its Wall Street brethren.

Despite investors’ embrace of Tuesday’s fairly benign consumer price index report, economists expect that the biggest impact to inflation is yet to come.

With pre-tariff inventories rolling off, effective tariff rates climbing higher and companies less willing to absorb higher costs from the duties, the general feeling is that consumers are increasingly going to feel the bite through the rest of the year.

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Inflation held at 2.7% for the year ending in July in the consumer price index, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday, suggesting that the price pressures from tariffs were not as strong as originally feared.

Forecasters expected inflation to rise for a third straight month to 2.8%.

Yet the report contained some signs of underlying inflationary pressure. Core inflation, a measure that strips out the volatile categories of food and energy prices, rose two-tenths of a percentage point to 3.1%, higher than expected. For just the month, core prices were up 0.3%, the largest monthly increase of the year so far.

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WASHINGTON, DC — President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order on August 7, 2025, aimed at preventing financial institutions from denying services to Americans based on their political or religious beliefs or lawful business activities. The order comes in response to past instances where banks and regulators allegedly engaged in politically motivated account closures and restrictions.

The order cites examples of financial institutions participating in government-directed surveillance programs after the events of January 6, 2021, flagging transactions related to companies such as Cabela’s and Bass Pro Shops or payments referencing “Trump” or “MAGA” without evidence of criminal conduct. It also references “Operation Chokepoint,” a prior federal effort that pressured banks to limit services to certain legal industries deemed high-risk or controversial by regulators.

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Inflation numbers released Tuesday beat economists’ expectations, sending one CNN anchor into an emotional tailspin as she attempted to explain away why President Donald Trump keeps winning each news cycle.

The July consumer price index (CPI) report showed that total energy prices fell 1.1% while food prices held steady and shelter ticked up 0.2%. Gas prices dropped 2.2%, an anomaly for a summer month where a record number of Americans travel during the summer holiday season, but also a reflection of a global economic slowdown.

On CNN, a morning anchor could barely stifle her surprise that Americans aren’t feeling a greater pinch at the grocery store after countless economic experts warned about the shock that President Trump’s tariffs would have on food prices.

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July’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report indicates that inflation is cooling more than expected, providing a boost to stock futures and placing greater weight on the U.S. dollar.

Consumer prices rose 2.7 percent in the 12 months since last July. This matched the 12-month period since June and came in below the expected rate of 2.8 percent. Core CPI, often considered a more accurate reading of long-term trends in the economy, rose .3 percent and 3.1 percent from a year ago.

Shelter costs ticked up 0.2 percent, accounting for most of the index’s gain, according to the BLS. Food prices held steady, while energy prices dropped 1.1 percent.

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics released July’s Consumer Price Index this morning, and the numbers tell a complicated story. While overall inflation held steady at 2.7 percent annually, core inflation—the measure that strips out volatile food and energy prices—accelerated to 3.1 percent, its highest level since March and well above the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target.