White House senior trade adviser Peter Navarro is urging Americans — and Wall Street — to temper their expectations ahead of Wednesday's monthly jobs report, arguing that the Trump administration's deportations of illegal aliens will naturally lower the "steady" pace of job growth.
"The jobs report's going to come out tomorrow. We have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like," Navarro said Tuesday on Fox Business' "Mornings with Maria."
Navarro, a top adviser to President Donald Trump on trade and manufacturing, said monthly gains around 50,000 should not be read as weakness — especially compared with the six-figure job growth that was routinely reported during the term of former President Joe Biden.
"When we were letting in 2 million illegal aliens … we had to produce 200,000 jobs a month for steady state. And, by the way, all of the jobs that we were creating in Biden years were going to illegals," Navarro said.
"Americans were going to the unemployment lines."
While illegal immigration surged under Biden, there is no way to measure how many newly created jobs went to workers not authorized to be in the United States.
Navarro said that dynamic is now changing under Trump's immigration enforcement agenda.
"That's totally reversed, and now 50,000 a month is going to be more like what we need," he added.
Navarro also said investors should keep those factors in mind when the new numbers are released, warning markets against treating a smaller monthly gain as bad news if it reflects a shrinking pool of illegal labor.
"So, Wall Street, when this stuff comes out, they can't rain on that parade. They have to adjust for the fact that we're deporting millions of illegals out of our job market," he said.
Host Maria Bartiromo agreed Navarro made a "good point" but noted, "It sounds like you're expecting a weak number tomorrow."
"Not expecting a weak number," Navarro responded. "I'm just saying that going forward, when we see a number under 100,000, we don't wring our hands."
Navarro's comments echoed recent remarks from White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, who said a strong economy can still produce smaller job gains if the labor force is shrinking.
Hassett said Monday that strong growth and a decline in the labor force "because of illegals leaving the country" could be reflected in Wednesday's report.
"I think that you should expect slightly smaller job numbers that are consistent with high GDP growth right now," he said on CNBC's "Squawk Box."
Calling the situation "an unusual set of circumstances," Hassett added that "one shouldn't panic if you see a sequence of numbers that are lower than you're used to because, again, population growth is going down, and productivity growth is skyrocketing."
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.