Famed economist Paul Krugman on Monday warned how Donald Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants is set “to hobble food production and home construction” and will likely — contrary to Trump’s campaign promises — send grocery prices soaring.
Krugman, the winner of the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, explained in the latest issue of his Substack newsletter how the president’s vows to hike tariffs and conduct mass deportations of undocumented immigrants will “likely to do a great deal of economic damage.”
But it’s the targeting of immigrants that “will spiral out of control,” he predicted.
The current fear among immigrants ― amid the Trump White House’s immigration enforcement blitz ― will have “major consequences, with workers staying home or, if they can, going back to their home countries, with businesses laying off valuable employees for fear that they may be raided,” Krugman argued.
Nearly 1,000 people were arrested on Sunday alone, reported CNN.
Trump’s second administration has nixed safe spots for migrants — such as schools and churches.
The economist envisioned an increase in vigilantism against immigrants.
And “losing a large fraction of these workers would be a serious blow to the economy, especially because immigrants, legal and not, play a much bigger role in some industries and occupations than they do in the economy as a whole,” he said.
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Krugman last week warned that many Trump voters will be “brutally scammed” when Trump introduces tariffs on goods imported into America.
Read Krugman’s full analysis on his Substack.