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Feel sorry for anyone tasked with delivering negative news about the US economy to Donald Trump. For months, Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell has faced the president’s wrath for not reducing interest rates — leading to childish insults and threats to his job. On Friday, it was the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ turn. The agency released weak non-farm payroll numbers for July and revised job creation estimates for the previous two months down by a significant 258,000. Erika McEntarfer, the agency’s commissioner, avoided insults only to be promptly dismissed. A new appointment is anticipated soon.

Trump asserted, without proof, that McEntarfer altered the numbers. The most plausible reason is that the US president simply disliked the figures. It was only a matter of time before the administration’s cuts to civil service positions, gloomy surveys of private sector hiring intentions, and the pressure of high-interest rates appeared in the main figures. And although last week’s data revisions were substantial, non-farm payrolls are notoriously unpredictable and revisions are common. The president stated: “Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes.” Yet by dismissing the BLS chief on questionable grounds, he has weakened trust in America’s economic data and politicized it.

First, the drastic action creates a climate of fear around the creation of national economic statistics. This gives investors, businesses, and the Fed reasons to doubt whether apprehensions about a presidential backlash might influence future data releases not just from the BLS, but also from other public bodies, including the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which produces GDP numbers. Second, it is likely that Trump’s replacement for McEntarfer might be more compliant to his preferences. That endangers the credibility of the BLS’s data itself, not just how it is viewed.

The president’s actions also hinder his own goals. The BLS issues reports on the labor market and inflation, which underlie the pricing of trillions of dollars in assets globally. While private data sources can fill some gaps, raising doubts about the reliability of national data still diminishes the ability of investors, businesses, and policymakers to make informed decisions. Ironically, the central bank is searching for concrete signs of labor market weakness before making the rate cuts that Trump desires. Equally concerning is the imminent replacement of Fed governor Adriana Kugler — who stepped down early on Friday — with what Trump hopes will be a more pliable rate-setter.

The BLS is not without shortcomings. Like many national statistics organizations, it has experienced declining survey response rates, particularly since the pandemic. This has led to questions about the representativeness of its samples and the precision of its calculations. A funding shortfall — worsened by the Trump administration’s own public sector reductions — hasn’t been beneficial. In February, several advisory councils to federal statistical agencies were also disbanded. Instead of engaging in a constructive overhaul of national statistics, Trump has opted for a heavy-handed approach.

The president isn’t alone. He joins a list of leaders, including from Turkey, Iran, Russia, Argentina, and China, accused in recent years of interfering with economic institutions to control the public narrative. The lesson from these countries is apparent: truth is difficult to suppress, and efforts to do so often lead to broader restrictions on free expression. Eventually, effective policymaking, public trust, and market confidence suffer the consequences. Politicians who refuse to confront the facts jeopardize the institutions that depend on them.