Trump's policies harm Black economic standing through deregulation and budget cuts

Donald Trump claims he is a great friend to Black America. But as economist Darrick Hamilton testified to the Joint Economic Committee, the racial wealth gap is not an accident—it is the result of government complicity in dispossession and exploitation, from slavery through redlining to the foreclosure crisis. Trump's policies—extending the 2017 tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy, deregulating finance, and slashing consumer protections—are a continuation of this pattern, not a break from it. They attack the very enforcement mechanisms that have helped narrow but never close the wealth gap.

Trump's deregulation of finance and labor markets erodes the small gains Black households have made. Without strong CFPB oversight, predatory lending returns; without union protections, wage growth stalls; without federal contracting equity programs, Black-owned businesses lose access to capital. The result is not a 'rising tide' but a deliberate return to the type of policy regime Hamilton describes: one where Black families remain vulnerable to exploitation and locked out of intergenerational wealth accumulation. Hamilton's testimony makes clear that education alone cannot solve this—only bold public investment and redistribution can.