“The United States is on pace to add about 2.6 million jobs this year under President Trump’s watch. Yet the bulk of the hiring has occurred in bastions of Democratic voters rather than in the Republican counties that put Trump in the White House,” the AP reports.

“On average for the year-ended this May, 58.5 percent of the job gains were in counties that backed Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016.”

“Despite an otherwise robust national economy, the analysis shows that a striking number of Trump counties are losing jobs. The AP found that 35.4 percent of Trump counties have shed jobs in the past year, compared with just 19.2 percent of Clinton counties.”

Elizabeth Drew: “Ever since our forty-fifth president was elected, tourism to the United States from foreign countries has steadily dropped—in the face of a world-wide boom in travel—and the authoritative U.S. Travel Association has just provided me with figures projecting a further drop in 2018, from a share of worldwide tourism of 12.0 percent in 2017 to 11.7 percent this year. And this is after a drop in Trump’s first year in office from 12.9 percent. Though the numbers and differentials look small in percentages, they are large in terms of dollars not spent here by foreign tourists and they have serious negative implications for jobs not created.”

Neil Irwin: “The economic expansion in the United States celebrated its ninth birthday last month. If it survives another year, it will be the longest on record.”

“But eventually something will kill it. The question is what, and when.”

“While it’s impossible to predict the details or timing of the next recession with any confidence, we can identify some emerging threats to the expansion — and with a bit of imagination, picture how the recession of 2020 (or 2022, or whatever year it ends up being) may unfold.”

“The United States trade deficit widened in June and is on track to be the biggest in a decade despite President Trump’s efforts to slash it,” the Washington Post reports.

“For the first half of 2018, the trade deficit in goods and services hit $291.2 billion, the federal government reported Friday, which is higher than last year and puts the nation on track to have the largest annual deficit since 2008.”

Wall Street Journal: “Trump administration advisers are debating measures that might bring Chinese negotiators to the table. Some are pushing the president to apply tariffs as high as 25% on $200 billion of Chinese imports, up from an original proposal for 10%.”

“The White House won’t make a final decision until at least late August on those tariffs, which are likely to target consumer goods and food as well as machinery components. Advisers are justifying the steeper tariffs, in part, to make up for the rapid depreciation of the yuan in recent months. Since May 30, the yuan has fallen 6% against the dollar.”

“United States gross domestic product rose at an annual rate of 4.1% in the second quarter, up from 2.2% in the first three months of the year. It was the strongest quarter of growth since 2014,” the New York Times reports.

“The second-quarter acceleration was widely anticipated by economists, a result of a confluence of events unlikely to recur. Most economists expect growth to slow in the second half of the year.”

“If you want to be stupid, I can be stupid, as well.”

— European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, quoted by the Wall Street Journal, telling President Trump that they “need to refrain from further punitive tariffs or they would foolishly harm themselves.”

“Republicans on Tuesday quietly exhaled after President Trump announced $12 billion in subsidies to rescue farm country, fretting that a trade war could bankrupt the agriculture industry and cost the party seats in the midterm elections,” Washington Examiner reports.

“Amid loud grumbling about federal bailouts and ‘Soviet’ central planning, Republicans in Congress conceded that action was needed to mitigate the economic and political fallout from the retaliatory tariffs sparked by Trump’s trade war. In major agriculture states, some of which are also key 2018 battlegrounds, free-trade Republicans reluctantly endorsed the president’s intervention.”

“Several of President Trump’s senior economic advisers believe he plans to impose a 25 percent tariff on close to $200 billion in foreign-made automobiles later this year,” the Washington Post reports.

“Trump wants to move forward despite numerous warnings from GOP leaders and business executives who have argued that such a move could damage the economy and lead to political mutiny. But Trump has become increasingly defiant in his trade strategy, following his own instincts and intuition and eschewing advice from his inner circle.”

President Trump’s “bailout for the ag industry is driving his many Republican trade critics to exasperation,” Politico reports.

”Pro-free trade Republicans were already furious with Trump’s escalation of tariffs against U.S. allies and China — a multi-front trade war they say is hurting U.S. farmers and manufacturers. But the administration’s response Tuesday — sending $12 billion to farmers hurt by retaliatory tariffs to ease the pain — is the precise anathema of conservative, free-trade orthodoxy.”

Said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): “This is becoming more and more like a Soviet-type of economy here: Commissars deciding who’s going to be granted waivers, commissars in the administration figuring out how they’re going to sprinkle around benefits. I’m very exasperated. This is serious.”

“The White House plans to announce on Tuesday a plan to extend $12 billion in emergency aid to farmers caught in the midst of President Trump’s escalating trade war, two people briefed on the plan said, the latest sign that growing tensions between the United States and other countries will not end soon,” the Washington Post reports.

”The funds will come through direct assistance, a food purchase and distribution program, and a trade promotion program.”

Bloomberg: “First, the tax reform hasn’t yet resulted in appreciably higher wages for American workers. Real average hourly compensation actually fell in the first quarter after the tax reform was passed.”

“Official data for the second quarter isn’t available yet, but private data isn’t looking encouraging. PayScale’s index of real wages shows a dramatic deterioration in the period.”