U.S. Census Detects Immigration Drop

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Top of the Agenda

U.S. population growth plunged to one of the lowest rates in history between July 2024 and June 2025, the Census said yesterday. The agency cited a drop in immigration, with net immigration adding only around 1.3 million people to the population—less than half of the number added the previous year during the Biden administration. Current trends suggest the country is moving toward net negative migration, the Census estimated. The data comes after the Trump administration made reducing immigration one of its flagship policies—and amid backlash over its immigration enforcement tactics. 

Zooming in. The U.S. population grew only 0.5 percent in the last year, according to the data. The only other time the country marked a lower growth rate was in 2021, during the height of COVID-19 pandemic, the Census said. The U.S. birth rate fell last year, continuing a decline that began after the 2008 financial crisis. While the Census did not point to a specific cause of last year’s population numbers, it noted the data spanned “two periods of very different immigration policies for the United States.” A New York Times analysis suggests it was Trump’s southern border restrictions and new visa barriers, more than deportations, that powered the slowdown. 

The upshot. The Trump administration has celebrated declining immigration numbers, with the White House arguing that its border crackdown protects American workers and reduces strain on local communities. At the same time, economic analysts at the Brookings Institution and Dallas Federal Reserve have written that the sharp immigration drop put downward pressure on GDP growth due to factors like fewer workers and less consumer spending.

“Throughout our history we have been a high-immigration nation and we’ve been a highly successful nation, created a lot of wealth, and [had a] tremendous pace of growth. And I think that over time we’ve begun to rely on immigration, really, for this pace of growth, and so we’re kind of used to high levels of immigration, high levels of investment, and lots of creation of economic output.”

—the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’s Pia Orrenius at a CFR Silberstein Lecture

Across the Globe

U.S.-Taiwan tech talks. Senior U.S. and Taiwanese officials held talks on economic cooperation in Washington yesterday focused on the tech sector. Taiwan’s diplomatic office in the United States endorsed the so-called Pax Silica, a Trump administration effort to ensure joint access to materials for chips and artificial intelligence (AI). The meeting was the sixth edition of an annual U.S.-Taiwan dialogue implemented in 2020. 

Ukraine war casualties. As many as 325,000 Russian troops and 140,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine almost four years ago, the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated in a new report. Russia’s total war casualties—including wounded and missing soldiers—total around 1.2 million people, the study found. That would mean Russia has amassed the highest number of casualties among major powers in any conflict since World War II. Moscow and Kyiv have rarely issued public estimates of military losses; the study cited estimates by Western officials.

Trump’s threats to attack Iran. Trump called on Tehran today to make a deal guaranteeing Iran has no nuclear weapons, warning that the United States could attack again if it refused. Trump added the U.S. naval deployment in the Middle East was ready to act with “speed and violence, if necessary.” This week, both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) publicly stated the United States could not use their airspace for an attack on Iran.

EV sales in Europe. Electric vehicles (EVs) outsold gas-powered ones in Europe for the first time in December, according to new data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. Hybrid cars continued to outsell both categories. EV sales grew despite Brussels’ proposal last month to scrap a 2035 ban on new combustion-engine car sales.

New UAE AI model. The leading technology university in the UAE released data yesterday for a new AI model that aims to compete with the top open AI models from the United States and China. The university’s president said the project seeks to fill a gap left by less transparent Western models, which have not yet offered “an answer” to Chinese open models. The head of Artificial Analysis, a firm that assesses new AI systems, said the UAE’s new model was “the most intelligent model at this level of openness.” 

U.S.-Iraq leadership tensions. The United States would “no longer help Iraq” if former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki returns to power, Trump wrote on social media yesterday. Earlier in the day, an Iraqi parliamentary election to select the country’s next president was delayed to allow parties to hold further consultations. Al-Maliki rejected “blatant American interference in Iraq’s internal affairs” in a social media post today.

Doomsday clock update. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which since 1947 has used a proverbial clock to demonstrate how close the world is to manmade disaster, advanced the clock yesterday to eighty-five seconds to midnight—its closest-ever point to catastrophe. The group warned that as China, Russia, the United States, and others become “increasingly aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic…hard-won global understandings are collapsing.” The breakdown risks accelerating the dangers of climate change and nuclear war, they added.

Rwanda-UK legal dispute. Rwanda’s government announced yesterday it had filed a legal complaint in the Hague against the British government over unmet payments from a scrapped migration deal. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer abandoned the deal—intended to send asylum seekers to Rwanda—once he took office in 2024. Bilateral relations have soured under Starmer’s tenure as he also took a harder stance against Rwanda’s support for rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

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