Solid US job growth masks weakness underneath
While the Labor Department's closely watched employment report also showed the unemployment rate falling to 4.1 per cent last month from 4.2 per cent in May, that was partly because some people left the labour force. The average workweek was shorter last month, suggesting that businesses were probably reducing hours amid rising economic headwinds.
'Although the overall number of jobs was very strong, the weakness was broad-based across the private sector,' said Eugenio Aleman, chief economist at Raymond James. 'The labour market continued to weaken in June, which is in line with our view and should reignite the conversation regarding the Federal Reserve's interest rate path.'
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 147,000 jobs last month after an upwardly revised 144,000 advance in May, the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Thursday (Jul 3). Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls rising 110,000 following a previously reported 139,000 gain in May.
Estimates ranged from an increase of 50,000 to 160,000 jobs. The report was published a day early because of the Independence Day holiday on Friday. Despite the bigger-than-expected rise in payrolls, job growth is slowing and concentrated in a few sectors.
Government employment rose by 73,000, boosted by a 40,000 increase in state government education, which economists brushed off as a seasonal quirk related to the end of the school year. Local government education increased 23,000. Federal government job losses continued, with 7,000 positions lost, and employment is now down by 69,000 since reaching a recent peak in January.
BT in your inbox
Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.
Sign Up
Sign Up
Private payrolls increased by 74,000 jobs, the fewest since October of 2024. Healthcare added 39,000 jobs, spread across hospitals nursing and residential care facilities. Social assistance employment increased by 19,000. Outside these non-cyclical sectors, job gains were weak.
US stocks fell. The US dollar advanced against a basket of currencies. US Treasury yields rose.
Economists say President Donald Trump's focus on what they call anti-growth policies, including sweeping tariffs on imported goods, mass deportations of migrants and sharp government spending cuts, has changed the public's perceptions of the economy.
Business and consumer sentiment surged in the wake of Trump's victory in the presidential election last November in anticipation of tax cuts and a less stringent regulatory environment before slumping about two months later.
Manufacturing shed 7,000 jobs, while wholesale trade lost 6,600 positions. Professional and business services payrolls decreased 7,000. Retailers added a paltry 2,400 jobs.
The average workweek fell to 34.2 hours from 34.3 hours in May. The unemployment rate fell from 4.2 per cent in May. Economists had expected the jobless rate to tick up to 4.3 per cent.
Indicators, including the number of people filing for state jobless benefits and receiving unemployment checks, have pointed to labour market fatigue after a strong performance that shielded the economy from recession as the US central bank aggressively tightened monetary policy to combat high inflation.
Most economists expect the jobless rate will rise through the second half of this year, and potentially encourage the Fed to resume its monetary policy easing cycle in September.
Some economists, however, see limited scope for the unemployment rate to rise as the immigration crackdown shrinks the labour pool. With the White House having revoked the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants, economists said fewer than 100,000 additional jobs per month would likely be needed to keep the jobless rate stable.
The Fed last month left its benchmark overnight interest rate in the 4.25-to-4.50 per cent range, where it has been since December. Fed chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday reiterated the central bank's plans to 'wait and learn more' about the impact of tariffs on inflation before lowering rates again. REUTERS
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
Japan PM says won't ‘easily compromise' to Trump on tariffs
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox US President Donald Trump has particularly pressed Japan to accept more US automobiles and rice. TOKYO - Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said July 6 he won't 'easily compromise' in talks with Washington as Tokyo seeks to avert President Donald Trump's threat to impose tariffs of up to 35 per cent on Japanese goods. 'We will not easily compromise. That's why it is taking time and why it is tough,' Mr Ishiba told a television talk show. His comments came as Japan rushes to negotiate with the Trump administration before the July 9 deadline for trade deals. While Mr Trump imposed a sweeping 10 per cent tariff on imports from most trading partners in April, he unveiled – then paused – higher rates on dozens of economies including Japan to allow room for negotiations. This pause will expire July 9, meaning the elevated rates are due to kick in if countries fail to reach agreements with Washington to avert them. Mr Trump has said he was going to write a letter to Japan, asking it to 'pay a 30 per cent, 35 per cent or whatever the number is that we determine,' and called the bilateral trade relation 'unfair'. He has particularly pressed Japan to accept more US automobiles and rice. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore First BTO project in Sembawang North to be offered in July launch Business High Court orders Instagram seller to pay Louis Vuitton $200,000 in damages over counterfeit goods Singapore MOH studying 18 proposals to integrate TCM into public healthcare Singapore TTSH to demolish century-old pavilion wards, keeping one as heritage marker World Death toll from Texas floods reaches at least 43; dozens still missing Singapore Red Lions and naval divers join forces for Jump of Unity at NDP 2025 Singapore His world crashed when he got F9 in O-level Tamil but PropNex co-founder Ismail Gafoor beat the odds Asia HIV surge in the Philippines amid poor sex education, policy gaps Mr Ryosei Akazawa, Tokyo's trade envoy, held telephone calls with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on July 3 and 5. In the Sunday television show, Mr Ishiba reiterated that Japan, as the biggest investor nation in the US economy, should be treated differently from other countries. 'What is unfair? How is it unfair? We need to examine each one' of the US claims, he said. 'We are allies, but we have to say what we have to say. We are the world's largest investor nation and the largest job creator (in the US). We are different,' he said. On another Sunday television show, Mr Ishiba said Japan was 'preparing to deal with all kinds of situations', when asked about how he plans to deal with Mr Trump's letter. AFP
Straits Times
5 hours ago
- Straits Times
Cashing in on his comeback, Trump rescues frail finances
In the spring of 2024, even as US President Donald Trump's march back toward the White House dominated public attention, his finances, largely out of view, faced serious threats. His office building in Lower Manhattan generated too little cash to cover its mortgage, with the balance coming due. Many of his golf courses regularly lacked enough players to cover costs. The flow of millions of dollars a year from his stint as a television celebrity had mostly dried up. And a sudden wave of legal judgments threatened to devour all his cash. Then, with his clinching of the Republican nomination, everything began to change. In the following months, Mr Trump, along with his two eldest sons, Eric and Donald Jr., refocused the family business, forming a series of partnerships, especially in cryptocurrency, with investors who were willing to bank on his victory. Once Trump won the presidency in November, that approach kicked into overdrive. His family business announced numerous new deals that would financially benefit Mr Trump directly, even as he made policy decisions that affected those industries or that involved countries in which the United States had political interests. Most glaringly, Mr Trump is now both a partner in several crypto ventures and, as president, crypto's chief policy regulator, and he has signalled that he wants his administration to have a hands-off approach to digital currencies. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore First BTO project in Sembawang North to be offered in July launch Singapore TTSH to demolish century-old pavilion wards, keeping one as heritage marker World 'Formed to give you back your freedom': Elon Musk says he has created a new US political party Singapore Tank collides into traffic light during National Day Parade national education show Singapore His world crashed when he got F9 in O-level Tamil but PropNex co-founder Ismail Gafoor beat the odds Asia HIV surge in the Philippines amid poor sex education, policy gaps Tech Graduates are not screwed if they study engineering: James Dyson in response to Economist article Business When a foreign wife failed to turn up for a $10m divorce Today, those moves are seen by Mr Trump's detractors as a money grab of historic proportions. But an analysis by The New York Times of thousands of pages of internal Trump Organization documents filed in one of the legal actions against him suggests a more urgent motivation for Mr Trump's behaviour: a need, rather than simply a desire, for easy money to keep his empire intact. In late 2023, Mr Trump boasted of having between US$300 million (S$382 million) and $400 million in cash when he testified as part of that legal action, a lawsuit brought by the New York attorney general that accused the Trumps of defrauding their lenders. His cash stockpile, Mr Trump said, showed 'how good a company I built,' and, he added in earlier testimony, 'especially for a developer.' Contrary to those assertions, records filed in the fraud case suggest that Mr Trump's cash was not the product of a steady and strong empire. His balance had fluctuated wildly, hitting a low of $52 million in 2018, a small figure for the size of his operation. The subsequent increase came largely from the sale of properties and a payout of more than $150 million from a passive investment. Moreover, the version of Mr Trump's business that he projects – a real estate development company that executes large, complex tasks – hasn't existed for a nearly a decade, since the Trumps' last two major construction projects failed to make money. Instead, Mr Trump's wealth is now built on monetising the family name in new ways and, intentionally or not, the office of the presidency. It is an enterprise in pursuit of multimillion-dollar checks – from actual real estate developers, from cryptocurrency and social media enterprises run by others. It is also a business that hawks Trump-branded trinkets such as watches and gold-toned mobile phones to the President's passionate supporters. Many of the deals open multiple channels for anyone to funnel cash to a sitting president, often in ways that are untraceable under current disclosure requirements. And because some of what is being sold is use of the President's name, there are no clear metrics to gauge whether he has received market rate, a premium because of his office or, in effect, a hopeful bribe. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said that Mr Trump abides by all conflict-of-interest laws and acts with only the interests of the American public in mind. In response to questions from the Times, Mr Eric Trump, who runs his father's businesses, issued a written statement saying the company is stronger than ever and largely debt free thanks to 'the most iconic' properties and 'cryptocurrency ventures on Earth'. 'I have never been more proud of our company,' the statement said. 'Our portfolio is operating flawlessly, and 2025 will mark the strongest year in the remarkable history of the Trump Organization.' Perfectly assessing Donald Trump's privately held businesses at any point in time is nearly impossible. But within months of his testimony in the New York civil fraud trial, all of his cash and liquid investments looked to be at risk. His businesses had often required cash infusions before a judge in the trial entered a judgment against the Trumps of $355 million. Mr Trump faced a second judgment of $88.3 million in the sexual abuse and defamation lawsuits brought by writer E. Jean Carroll . He has not yet had to pay the judgments, which now total more than $600 million with interest. But he did have to put up cash totalling $175 million in the fraud case, and cash and bonds totalling $97 million in Ms Carroll's cases, to pursue appeals. Mr Trump also faced a potential hit of $100 million from a long-standing tax audit, though it now appears unlikely that his political appointees at the Internal Revenue Service would sign off on such an assessment – another benefit of having returned to the Oval Office. To be sure, Mr Trump was not facing a calamity. He could have sold more properties, at the expense of his family's future wealth, to cover any shortfall. The Trumps found a different path. 'His approach to almost everything at this point now seems to be that he's going to get away with whatever he can get away with, and sort of dare people to try to find legal or political ways to stop him,' said Mr Noah Bookbinder, president of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal-leaning nonprofit group. Escalator to Nowhere When Mr Trump completed construction on Trump Tower four decades ago, its five-floor atrium was filled with luxury retailers from around the globe – Asprey of London, Buccellati, Cartier – creating a destination for high-end shoppers and tourists alike. Those spaces, and the office rentals above, provided Mr Trump with one of his most reliable sources of profits for decades, a 2020 analysis of his tax returns by the Times found. The famed shimmering escalators leading up to the top retail floors are now roped off, the stores there having departed over the years. Two smaller spaces on the ground floor and below offer Trump-branded merchandise, such as license-plate frames and sweatshirts. The atrium's signature design feature – a multistory marble water wall – has been turned off and covered by a large US flag. Only one major retailer remains: Gucci, in the one space with visibility from the sidewalk. At 40 Wall Street, Mr Trump's office tower in Lower Manhattan, 25 per cent of the building has been vacant since 2024. In March, Fitch Ratings reported that, after covering basic expenses, the building generated $2 million per year less than Mr Trump needed for his mortgage payments, and in a few years he will face a multimillion-dollar jump in the rent he pays for the ground under the building. Vacancies have also haunted Mr Trump's most recent large-scale construction site, a 92-story tower in Chicago. With most of the apartments and hotel rooms sold off years ago, Mr Trump's ownership stake is comprised mostly of some 70,000 sq ft of retail space that he had hoped would produce millions of dollars a year in rental income. Designed below street level with little visibility to passers-by, those floors remain empty 16 years after the building was finished. Things did not go measurably better with Mr Trump's redevelopment of the Old Post Office in Washington, which opened as a hotel in 2016. He never recorded a profitable year there – despite its becoming a destination for acolytes of Mr Trump during his first administration. He sold his interests in 2022 to a private equity firm for $375 million, a price that elicited excitement from the Trumps. 'To say the result is a financial success would be an understatement,' Mr Eric Trump wrote in an e-mail to company employees. But company documents filed in the fraud case show that the sale did not cover Mr Trump's costs on the project. The hotel's buyer could not cover closing costs and borrowed $28 million from the Trumps before defaulting on the loan. Without that repayment, Mr Trump was going to be left with $79 million from the sale after paying taxes, according to a spreadsheet created by his accountant and filed in the fraud lawsuit. Another company record filed in the case shows that he had invested about $100 million in the project. It has now been nearly a decade since the Trumps completed the hotel. The years since have been marked by contraction. In addition to the Washington hotel, in recent years Mr Trump has sold control of a golf course in the Bronx, a mansion in Los Angeles, land on a Caribbean island, numerous luxury condominiums that he had held as rentals in buildings he constructed and the developable land around his golf course near Los Angeles. Each sale brought a wave of cash, but also a diminished opportunity for future earnings. Not Looking to Build Mr Trump rarely escapes to anywhere on weekends and vacations other than his own golf courses, where he goes to exercise, relax and be seen. He has said that those 14 courses do not represent a 'major business' for him, rather investments that reflect his love of the game. He spent hundreds of millions of dollars remaking them to his tastes, often with ornate clubhouses and elaborate artificial waterfalls. Those investments have not always paid off. A golf course appraisal expert for the New York Attorney General's office examined the financial records of all but one of Mr Trump's golf courses for 2011 through 2021 and found that at least half of them reported negative cash flow for multiple years. One email showed Mr Allen Weisselberg, the company's longtime head of finance , notifying Mr Trump's two elder sons that the Trump Organization produced only $2.2 million in 2017, before taxes or disbursements to the family. A primary culprit was the golf courses, where the Trumps had spent almost $13 million more than planned on maintenance and improvements, while the courses brought in $15 million less in operating profits than expected. Mr Trump has also described his courses as real estate development projects in waiting. But the Trumps have not created a record of success toward that goal. Their efforts to add homes to his two courses in Scotland, for example, stalled. The Trumps did win approval in January for a major development in the parking lot at Trump National Doral, a golf resort near Miami. The project would include nearly 1,500 condominium apartments and more than 140,000 square feet of commercial space. But that plan does not appear to be the one that will restart the Trumps' real estate development business anytime soon. During his deposition in the fraud case, Mr Trump said that he might build there in a decade, leave it for his children to develop or 'sell it to another developer for a lot of money and let them do it.' He said he often sought zoning approval to develop, just in case. Regardless, Mr Trump added, 'we're not actively looking to build.' In 2021, Deutsche Bank, which held Trump's mortgage, hired the firm Newmark to appraise Doral, Mr Trump's highest-revenue resort, with four courses and 643 hotel rooms. The resulting analysis concluded that Mr Trump had spent $379 million buying and renovating the resort, and that it was worth only $297 million. The appraisal included an even more jarring finding. While Doral, like several of Mr Trump's properties, was known to benefit from people looking to buy proximity to a president during Mr Trump's first term, his managers believed even more potential customers stayed away because of him. Mr Trump's divisive public comments over time had pushed down bookings and room rates for six years running, his managers told the appraisers. The managers believed that 'the Trump brand has negatively impacted' revenues at Doral. Newmark's experts agreed, writing that 'we believe that with a different brand, the subject might perform better.' Spigot Turned Back On The Doral appraisal highlights perhaps the starkest turn in the Trump family's finances. The value of the Trump name as a brand on real estate projects and mass-market consumer goods made by others, both here and abroad, was central to sustaining his businesses during his peak years on 'The Apprentice'. The annual reports that the Trumps sent to their lenders showed television and licensing profits totalled $259 million from 2011 to 2017. But even with that deluge of cash, Mr Trump still reported an overall negative cash flow of $46.8 million from his empire. Mr Donald Trump Jr. testified glowingly during the fraud trial about those licensing deals. Compared with real estate development, they required no investment and little labour. 'I don't want to say it was free revenue,' he said, but 'it was a pretty spectacular system that we were able to create.' But the cash gusher from entertainment had slowed to a trickle by the time the elder Trump entered politics, and after he entered the White House in 2017, the company fell into a dry spell for new licensing deals. Some of that was because the Trump Organization pledged not to sign new foreign deals in an attempt to avoid conflicts of interest. After Mr Trump left office in January 2021, the Trump Organization did not announce a major new branding agreement until late 2022 – for a golf resort in Oman. The spigot of foreign branding deals did not fully turn back on until after Mr Trump clinched the Republican nomination and a second term seemed within reach. After that, nine deals were announced in rapid succession: one each for developments in Vietnam and Serbia, two in India and five on the Arabian Peninsula, including a golf resort in Qatar, a residential tower in Jeddah, another tower in Dubai and two more in Riyadh. All but one of the new licensing contracts came from relationships that predated Mr Trump's first presidency. And some of those paying for the Trump name have made clear that his official stature was part of the attraction. Mr Kalpesh Mehta, a real estate developer in India, signed his first licensing deal with the Trumps 12 years ago. Mr Mehta has said he met Mr Donald Trump Jr. while they were both studying at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr Donald Trump Jr. has joked that they are 'like an old married couple.' During inaugural events in January, Mr Mehta met with Mr Eric Trump at Mar-a-Lago and the President-elect at the Trump golf course in Virginia. Weeks later, the Trumps and Mr Mehta signed a new licensing deal for a commercial office tower in Pune, India. They announced yet another deal – their sixth – in April. Mr Mehta did not respond to requests for comment but has said that Trump-branded properties draw heightened interest in India. Mr Trump's deals on the Arabian Peninsula all share a connection to one man: Lebanese-born construction executive Ziad El Chaar, who first brought Mr Trump into a branding agreement in 2013, for a golf course in Dubai, through a construction company based there called DAMAC. Mr El Chaar has since become CEO of DarGlobal, a subsidiary of Dar Al Arkan Real Estate, a large Saudi Arabia-based construction company with ties to the Saudi government. He has signed five more deals with the Trumps since the summer of 2024. During a DarGlobal event introducing the Oman project, Mr El Chaar said the Trump name 'immediately put the project on the global map'. Through a spokesperson, Mr El Chaar declined to discuss DarGlobal's contracts with the Trumps. Financial support from Saudi Arabia has also helped Mr Trump's golf courses. Since 2022, the Saudi-backed LIV Golf league has paid him to host annual tournaments at his resorts in Doral, Florida, and Bedminster, New Jersey. Neither the league nor Mr Trump has revealed the amount of money involved. Mr Trump has used his presidential bully pulpit to advocate for a merger between the US-based PGA Tour and LIV Golf, which could reunite the world's top golfers on courses Mr Trump owns. On his federal financial disclosure forms, Mr Trump has not been required to divulge the full amount promised to him in any of his licensing deals, only what he receives during a given year, which sometimes includes a management fee. What information he has released suggests that the Trumps have raised the price for use of their name. Mr Trump's tax returns during his television celebrity years showed payments in round numbers when he signed a licensing contract, typically $750,000 or $1 million. Financial disclosure forms he recently filed showed payments of exactly $5 million each for the deal in Vietnam and one with Mr El Chaar's company. But in terms of the potential for anyone, from anywhere, to transmit hundreds of millions of dollars to a US President, the recent wave of licensing agreements was only a warmup. A Massive Stockpile In December 2024, just months after Trump and his two eldest sons made their first public comments in support of digital currencies, Mr Eric Trump was invited to appear as the keynote speaker at a bitcoin conference in Abu Dhabi. He addressed the question he presumed to be on everyone's mind: Why are you here? 'I know all of you are thinking: 'Eric, you're from real estate family. You've spent your entire life in real estate, concrete, drywall,'' he said. 'I built Trump Chicago,' he added twice, referring to a four-year project completed when he was 24. Sixteen years after completion of the Chicago tower, the Trumps still invoke its memory to establish business gravitas and their chosen identity as real estate developers. But their recent moves into crypto and other enterprises bear more in common with Mr Donald Trump's licensing deals: little or no investment, risk or operational responsibility. Mr Trump, and to a lesser extent his sons, generally serve as a means to draw attention and convert the president's political supporters into investors and paying customers. Mr Trump has invested nothing in Trump Media, the parent company of the social media site Truth Social, and has no official duties. But he received more than half of the company's stock, a stake that has fallen in value but is still worth $2 billion. In crypto, the Trumps have entered into a series of partnerships. Their partners were the ones who have invested most or all of the capital, or raised money through token sales, and run the businesses. The crypto coins issued to the Trump family through its first foray into the sector, World Liberty Financial, have recently been worth at least $236 million. The Trumps' sale of meme coins, otherwise worthless collectible digital trinkets, has been particularly lucrative. The fees collected by Mr Trump and his associates on those sales have so far totalled $320 million, according to Chainalysis, a crypto analytics firm. The meme coins have proved to be a multimillion-dollar leap from the Trump-branded Bibles, guitars and watches that the Trumps sold during the 2024 campaign. The long-term viability of the new businesses remains unclear, as does the liquidity of some of Mr Trump's holdings in them. He cannot yet sell most of his crypto coins. And he would most likely crush Trump Media if he unloaded his stock, even as the company continues to lose money and struggles to produce $1 million per quarter in revenue, roughly the average of a single McDonald's restaurant. But the new cash has already helped solve old problems. Last month, the Trumps paid off the $115 million mortgage coming due on 40 Wall Street. Analysts had said that the building's low rental income would make banks squeamish about refinancing. Going forward, the new enterprises represent a massive stockpile with the potential to cover legal judgments, mortgage payments and holes in balance sheets for years to come. NYTIMES
Straits Times
5 hours ago
- Straits Times
What is Trump's net worth? Here's what we know and can't know
Mr Donald Trump's precise net worth is unknowable, partly because the Trump family business is a privately held company that discloses little about its financials. US President Donald Trump has long boasted of being a billionaire – even as journalists, accountants and the New York Attorney-General have cast doubt on just how many billions he is worth. Mr Trump's precise net worth is unknowable, partly because the Trump family business is a privately held company that discloses little about its financials. The President also derives some of his wealth from real estate, the value of which can be difficult to estimate. And some of his assets are shared with family members or business partners, making it tricky to untangle what portion belongs to him. Still, some of Mr Trump's financial holdings – for example, those in the stock market and the cryptocurrency industry – are publicly known. And the annual financial disclosure that Mr Trump must file as President offers a snapshot of the murkier elements of his business. It also lists his outstanding debts, including from a few recent legal judgments against him. Together, that information shows that Mr Trump's net worth has soared in the early months of his second term, mostly thanks to his crypto investments, suggesting that he might now be worth US$10 billion (S$12.7 billion) or more. Yet a vast majority of that sum is not liquid. He would have to unload investments and sell his stakes in various ventures to realize much of that wealth. Here is a breakdown of what we know – and don't know – about the President's net worth. Cryptocurrencies: as much as $7.1 billion Crypto is a relatively new area for the Trump family. But in just a couple of years, Trump has accumulated a sprawling array of crypto investments that touch virtually every part of the industry. A massive portion of Mr Trump's wealth is only six months old: a so-called meme coin, $TRUMP, that he unveiled just days before his inauguration in January. (A meme coin is a type of digital currency tied to an online joke or mascot, and it typically has no function beyond speculation.) Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore First BTO project in Sembawang North to be offered in July launch Singapore TTSH to demolish century-old pavilion wards, keeping one as heritage marker World 'Formed to give you back your freedom': Elon Musk says he has created a new US political party Singapore Tank collides into traffic light during National Day Parade national education show Singapore His world crashed when he got F9 in O-level Tamil but PropNex co-founder Ismail Gafoor beat the odds Asia HIV surge in the Philippines amid poor sex education, policy gaps Tech Graduates are not screwed if they study engineering: James Dyson in response to Economist article Business When a foreign wife failed to turn up for a $10m divorce Mr Trump and his partners still own the bulk of the $TRUMP coins that have been created. At the current trading price of around $8.67, as of noon on July 1, those holdings amount to about $6.9 billion. But this value is not liquid: The coins owned by Mr Trump cannot currently be traded, and any large sale would cause the price to crater. It is also unclear how much belongs to Mr Trump versus his partners. Along with the value of the $TRUMP coins that the president holds, he benefits from transaction fees every time the meme coin is traded. To date, these fees have totalled at least $320 million, which the Trump family shares with its business partners, according to Chainalysis, a crypto analytics firm. The President's headfirst dive into the crypto industry has been highly lucrative – and not just because of his meme coin. The crypto firm that he helped start during the presidential campaign in 2024, World Liberty Financial, has also generated a significant sum from the sale of its own digital tokens, known as WLFI. A business owned by the Trump family is entitled to 75 per cent of the revenue from token sales, after a $30 million threshold is reached and expenses are deducted. World Liberty said in March that it had sold $550 million in tokens, and then reported subsequent sales of $25 million and $100 million. The sales likely netted more – possibly much more – than $300 million for the Trump family, though the President's precise earnings will not be known until he files his next annual financial report. Mr Trump also controls his own stash of more than 15 billion World Liberty tokens, according to his most recent disclosure. The tokens are currently not tradable, making it difficult to estimate their value. For now, owning them simply allows holders to vote on some of World Liberty Financial's business decisions. But data collected by crypto forensics firm Nansen shows that some of the tokens were originally sold at 1.5 cents apiece – consistent with pricing information that World Liberty circulated to investors last year. That would put the value of Mr Trump's holdings at roughly $236 million. And it's possible that World Liberty will eventually allow the tokens to be traded, which could cause their value to skyrocket. The company has said it is working on making the tokens 'transferable,' though it's not clear exactly what that means. At a crypto conference in New York on June 25, one of World Liberty's founders Zak Folkman hinted that an announcement could come in the next couple of weeks. 'Everybody is going to be very, very happy,' he said. Stocks, bonds and cash: at least $2.2 billion The second largest source of Mr Trump's net worth, after the meme coin, is his stake in the publicly traded corporation that runs his social media venture, Truth Social. The president owns 115 million shares in the company, Trump Media & Technology Group, making his stake worth about $2 billion based on the current price of the stock. But unless he sells the shares, this aspect of his net worth is theoretical, existing only on paper. And the value of Trump Media shares has fallen precipitously since his inauguration. At its peak, Mr Trump's stake in the company was worth about $6 billion. The President also has an expansive financial investment portfolio that was worth at least $236 million, according to his most recent financial disclosure, which covers 2024. The exact size of his portfolio is unknown because his financial disclosure reports these assets in wide ranges. One entry in the disclosure indicated that Mr Trump held more than $50 million in a money market fund with no top value provided, making it impossible to determine the true maximum total of his holdings. The New York Times previously analysed the financial disclosure he filed in 2024 to determine the breakdown of his holdings in bonds, cash and stocks. If Mr Trump held the low end of the range for each asset listed, bonds would have accounted for about 60 per cent of his portfolio; cash and similar investments for roughly 30 per cent; and stocks for less than 10 per cent. Municipal bonds represented nearly 80 per cent of Mr Trump's bond holdings, according to the minimum values reported. At minimum, Mr Trump's investment portfolio of stocks, bonds and cash produced $13 million in dividends and interest in 2024. Real estate and other business holdings: at least $1.3 billion Before Mr Trump was a crypto mogul, he drew much of his net worth from the value of his real estate – hotels, residential properties, golf clubs and commercial office towers. This business has ebbed and flowed over the years, though it remains important for Mr Trump. It is difficult to determine the exact value of his real estate; he offers only estimates in his financial disclosures. For example, he valued 19 real estate assets at more than $50 million each in his latest disclosure, with no reported maximum. All told, he valued his properties and other business holdings at a minimum of $1.3 billion, excluding Trump Media and World Liberty. The New York Attorney-General accused Mr Trump of inflating his real estate values to secure favourable loans from banks, prompting a months-long civil trial that resulted in a nearly $500 million judgment against him. These properties also generate revenue, though he does not reveal his expenses or investments in the properties, so profit or loss cannot be determined. In 2024, the top two revenue generators were in Florida: the Trump National Doral golf club near Miami ($110 million) and his Mar-a-Lago private club and estate ($50 million). Royalties: at least $11 million in 2024 Gold watches. An electric guitar. A coffee-table book. Sneakers and a Bible. Mr Trump has put his name on a wide variety of consumer products – and these deals generate a steady flow of royalty payments for him. In 2024, he received more than $11 million in such payments, according to his financial disclosure. Debts: more than $640 million plus interest Like almost any real estate investor, Mr Trump has sizable loans on some of his properties. His company said it recently paid off a $160 million loan on its 40 Wall Street office building in New York, though he still owed more than $100 million on other properties, according to his latest disclosure. But the President's biggest debt stems from his recent legal troubles: the nearly $500 million judgment from the New York Attorney-General's office and two lawsuits brought by writer E. Jean Carroll. In one of those two cases, a Manhattan jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her after she accused him of sexual assault. A separate jury had earlier awarded Ms Carroll $5 million after finding that Mr Trump had sexually abused her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s and had defamed her in a Truth Social post. After these courtroom losses, Mr Trump had to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in so-called appellate bonds, which spare him from paying the judgments while he appeals them. But to do so, he had to pledge a significant amount of his assets to the companies providing the bonds. And if he ultimately loses the appeals, Trump will owe the full amount of the judgments, plus significant interest. NYTIMES
