McEntarfer's firing added to growing concerns about the quality of U.S. economic data and came on the heels of a raft of new tariffs on dozens of trading partners, sending global stock markets tumbling as Trump presses ahead with plans to reorder the global economy.

White House officials on Sunday defended President Trump’s decision to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) following a weak jobs report, a move that has sparked broad criticism. “The president wants his own people there so that when we see the numbers,

The comments are the latest effort by the White House to undercut economic data that does not fit within Trump's political narrative.