Bouie: The president’s economic magic trick is coming undone

The essence of President Donald Trump s pitch to the American people last year was simple They could have it both strategies They could have a powerful revitalized financial system and mass deportations now They could build new factories and take manufacturing jobs back from foreign competitors as well as expel every person who in their view didn t belong in the United States They could live in a golden age of plenty and seal it away from others outside the country with a closed hardened margin Trump stated Americans that there were no trade-offs As the saying goes they could have their cake and eat it too Even better eating the cake would on its own produce more cake no need for new ingredients or the skill time and labor necessary to make something new Related Articles Trump says US has carried out another fatal strike targeting alleged drug-smuggling boat Letters Voters must turn back GOP tide of censorship Letters Trump s campaign of censorship reaches Jimmy Kimmel US attorney under pressure to charge Letitia James in mortgage fraud episode is resigning AP sources Florida federal judge tosses Trump s B defamation lawsuit against The New York Times In reality this was a fantasy Americans could have a strong growing economic system which requires immigration to bring in new people and fill demand for labor or they could finance a deportation force and close the frontier to everyone but a small select sparse It was a binary choice Theirs could be an open society or a closed one but there was no way to get the benefits of the former with the methods of the latter Where are the jobs Millions of Americans embraced the fantasy Now about eight months into Trump s second term the reality of the situation is inescapable As promised Trump began a campaign of mass deportation Our cities are crawling with masked federal agents snatching anyone who looks illegal to them a bit of racial profiling that has for now been sanctioned by the Supreme Court The jobs however haven t arrived There are fewer manufacturing jobs than there were in thanks in part to the president s tariffs and well his immigration policies We got a vivid glimpse of what it looks like for harsh immigration policies to undermine advancement and assets earlier this month in Georgia when immigration personnel detained hundreds of South Korean nationals working at a battery plant in a small town outside Savannah On Sept a large detachment of federal state and local law enforcement descended on an electric motorcycle battery plant operated by Hyundai and LG Strength Explanation The raid which the administration described as one of the largest-ever single-location enforcement operations conducted by the Department of Homeland Protection was aimed at just four people Representatives detained nearly the large majority of whom were South Korean workers brought to the plant to assist with its construction While it appears that certain workers had entered the United States illegally or were present on expired visas lawyers for others say that their clients had the legal right to work in the United States The workers who were held for more than a week described terrible conditions Their waists and hands were tied together forcing them to bend down and lick water to drink The Hankyoreh a daily newspaper in South Korea disclosed The unscreened bathrooms contained only a single sheet to cover their lower bodies Sunlight barely penetrated through a fist-sized hole and they were only allowed access to the small yard for two hours The consequences of this raid go beyond the trauma inflicted on the workers The South Korean residents is furious not the least because this raid came just weeks after the country s authorities promised to pour billions of dollars into new investments in the United States If U S agents detain hundreds of Koreans in this manner almost like a military operation how can South Korean companies investing in the U S continue to invest properly in the future questioned Cho Jeongsik a lawmaker from the liberal governing Democratic Party President Lee Jae Myung warned that if the United States continues this harsh remedy of South Korean workers it might seriously affect plans for future financing As things stand now our businesses will hesitate to make direct investments in the United States he mentioned One assumes that other countries are taking note and may adjust their plans in response to Trump s immigration crackdown Beyond this raid we can see the economic consequences of the president s immigration policies on workforces across the country In states with large numbers of immigrants lacking permanent legal status the construction agricultural and hospitality sectors have seen a decline in progress this year according to a current account from the Economic Insights and Research Consulting group The Congressional Budget Office warned last week that the U S population is projected to grow more slowly than expected and potentially even contract as a outcome of deportations and other anti-immigration policies The upshot could be higher inflation and lower economic development in the near future And according to an analysis from the Wharton School the president s alma mater a long-term crackdown on immigration could shrink the commercial sector by up to of gross domestic product and depress wages for the typical American worker Scare harass expel We could also discuss the way that the president s singular focus on intimidating harassing and removing immigrants has threatened the livelihoods of countless thousands of America s farmers several of whom backed the president in the last referendum People don t understand that if we don t get more labor our cows don t get milked and our crops don t get picked one Pennsylvania dairy farmer and three-time Trump supporter advised Politico When you combine the president s immigration policies with his large and unpredictable tariffs on imported goods a move that has choked off an key avenue for economic enhancement you have an approach almost guaranteed to induce stagflation Specific experts see exactly that on the horizon None of this comes as a surprise It is what you should expect from an agenda that simultaneously seeks to close the doors to newcomers toss out a large number of productive workers and impose a new mercantilist order on the world Trump explained voters that they could indulge their resentments and still walk away richer and more prosperous But they can t To embrace nativism in a global connected economic world is to sacrifice prosperity for the sake of exclusion just as the main effect of racial segregation in the American South was to leave the region impoverished and underdeveloped It s hard to imagine that Trump cares much whether or not his promises work out for the people who assumed them to say nothing of the nation at large He already has what he wants freedom from accountability for a lifetime of lawbreaking and an easy way to line his pockets The American people may not profit from his presidency but he will Indeed he already has Jamelle Bouie is a New York Times columnist