Washington, Oct. 2, 2025 – The US federal government might be shut down, but President Trump is making every effort not to let that slow down his economic agenda.
The president’s economic priorities that aren’t directly related to the stoppage won’t be interrupted, as administration-authored shutdown contingency plans allow for tariff rollouts to continue and a $20 billion bailout for Argentina to remain intact.
The White House also appears set to use the funding shortfall as an opportunity to expand Trump’s imprint, with the president promising to use expanded powers in a shutdown to potentially fire government workers or even cut programs.
That nascent effort is already being likened to the Department of Government Efficiency formerly led by Elon Musk, with many affixing the moniker “DOGE 2.0” this time around.
It’s part of a White House effort that could grow more ambitious the longer a shutdown lasts. And for now, no end is in immediate sight.
On Wednesday afternoon, another round of votes saw US senators fail to advance competing plans to fund the government — for the second time in as many days.
“A lot of good can come down from shutdowns,” Trump offered Tuesday evening as the deadline loomed, adding, “We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want, and they’d be Democrat things.”
And indeed, the early moves appear to be in line with that focus.
Trump budget chief Russell Vought announced Wednesday a hold on roughly $18 billion in infrastructure funding for New York City, followed by the cancellation of nearly $8 billion in green energy money to blue states.
The shutdown wasn’t directly mentioned in either post, but the consequences for talks were immediately evident, especially with the first move pausing federal money in the home city of both Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.
Schumer quicklyslammed that move as “stupid and counterproductive.”
Efforts around tariffs and global finance
On the issue of tariffs Trump’s team is making clear that the work of setting up future duties isn’t stopping.
After all, the Commerce Department’s shutdown contingency plan states that “the necessary work to address the effect of imported articles on national security” will continue.
This is an effort related to investigations in progress under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which mandates months of procedures before new tariffs can be imposed.
In recent days, the president has outlined plans to both fire workers and make cuts to programs that “are irreversible.”
On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance added that no final decisions on layoffs had been made but plans were in the works that could be unveiled soon.
