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VOA VIEW -- Is the opinion of "Voice of Americans", which is a private entity not affiliated in any way with the United States government or any of its agencies. The opinions expressed here, in whatever medium or format, are not necessarily the opinions of the ownership or advertisers of this web site - 0415.

     The so-called experts know little.  Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick denied that the Trump administration’s tariff policies were to blame after a new report showed a surprise drop in private payrolls in November.

     Instead, Lutnick argued on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” that the government shutdown temporarily slowed small-business activity. He added that the federal efforts to enact mass deportations of undocumented immigrants also suppressed jobs numbers.

     “No, no, it’s not tariffs,” Lutnick said when asked whether President Donald Trump’s import duties explained Wednesday morning’s report from ADP, which revealed an unexpected 32,000-worker drop in the labor market.  That decline, a sharp turnabout from October, was led by businesses with fewer than 50 workers, which saw their payroll numbers sink by 120,000. Larger businesses, meanwhile, reported a net gain of 90,000 workers. 

     “Remember, you had the Democratic shutdown, right? And what do you think happens to small business? The people who do business with the U.S. government, they know they’re not getting paid, so they sort of slow down their projects,” Lutnick said. “So you saw a little bit, even, of construction small business down. So the Democratic shutdown hurt the numbers,” he said.  “And then, remember, as you deport people, that’s going to suppress private job numbers of small businesses,” Lutnick added.