President Donald Trump is threatening to seize control of New York City. But the city may face even bigger problems from Trump’s policy agenda than the military potentially marching through Central Park or Times Square.

       “I’m going to look at New York in a little while,” Trump said Monday while he took federal control of Washington, DC’s police force and mobilized National Guard troops. This follows Trump’s deployment of the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles in June.

       But it’s the Trump administration’s economic and immigration policies that are already damaging America’s largest city and may hurt its future. These policies – along with GOP cuts to the social safety net — could also stymie Zohran Mamdani’s affordability agenda. Mamdani, the democratic socialist favored to become New York City’s next mayor, won the Democratic primary in an upset victory on promises to make the nation’s most expensive city more affordable.

       “Broadly, the city’s economy and public safety are in a strong place. The risks to them at this moment are largely coming from Trump and the erratic nature of tariffs,” said New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, a previous mayoral candidate who has endorsed Mamdani. Trump’s tariff policies “pose very real risks to the global economy and cities that are closely tied into it — New York City, first and foremost.”

       New York City is on track this year to record the lowest number of shootings and murders in its recorded history. And its economy has bounced back from the devastating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The city lost 23% of its jobs during March and April 2020 but now has roughly 200,000 more jobs than it did pre-pandemic, according to the Labor Department.

       But Trump’s trade war is weakening those hard-fought gains. New York City’s thousands of businesses added just a net 956 private-sector jobs in the first half of the year. While that counted as growth, it was the slowest outside a recession in decades.

       “Trump’s policies create conditions that will likely be inconducive to job growth in the near future,” the left-leaning New School’s Center for New York City Affairs said in a July report.

       Trump’s policies are also keeping foreign tourists away from one of the most desirable cities in the world to visit. International tourism is expected to fall by 17% this year, or 2 million fewer travelers, led by Canadian visitors staying home after Trump threatened to annex the country.

       Meanwhile, Trump’s deportation push is reverberating through New York City’s economy, labor market and immigrant communities.

       New York State has roughly 670,000 undocumented immigrants, and 80% are in the workforce, mainly in food service, construction and home health care. The labor force participation rate in New York City among Hispanic men, one target of Trump’s deportation efforts, has dropped 3.6 percentage points since the third quarter of 2024, according to the New School. It was the largest decline of any group.

       Trump’s anti-immigration agenda also damages the “competitive advantage” and “mystique” New York City has long enjoyed as a destination for creative talent from around the globe, said Bradley Tusk, a venture capitalist and political strategist.

       Many in New York City’s business community have been supportive of Trump’s policies on taxes, deregulation and attempting to bring jobs back to America. Bill Ackman, John Paulson, John Catsimatidis and other city business leaders have also praised Trump.

       In a statement to CNN, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said the Trump administration has implemented a “multi-faceted, pro-growth agenda of deregulation, the tax cuts of The One Big Beautiful Bill, fair trade deals, and tariffs.” Leading businesses have responded by pledging trillions in new manufacturing investments into the United States, he said.

       “If New York Democrats stopped abetting violent crime and got out of the way of productive enterprise instead of putting forward radical communists like Zohran Mamdani, New York could be booming under President Trump, too,” Desai said.

       Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act enacted last month jeopardizes the financial stability of the city in the coming years, state officials and budget experts say.

       “Prospectively, federal budget cuts are the most serious threat to the city,” said Kathryn Wylde, the longtime leader of the Partnership for New York City, an influential business group. “The New York economy is doing very well. Our tax base is stronger than ever. The question is how long will that last if we have mass deportations, high tariffs and a loss of federal funds?”

       The bill will result in 1.5 million New Yorkers losing health insurance coverage; 300,000 households losing some or all of their SNAP benefits; $13 billion in cuts to New York’s health care system with 200,000 job losses; higher long-term energy costs by eliminating clean energy projects, according to state estimates.

       New York State also faces a $34 billion budget deficit in the wake of federal spending cuts and a softening economy, the biggest gap since the 2008 financial crisis, the state’s comptroller announced in a report last week.

       “Like other states, New York now faces a new crisis it has to overcome,” state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a statement. State governments will be “facing drastic reductions in federal aid that could force difficult decisions about state revenue and spending priorities.”

       Trump’s public threats against New York City have ramped up in recent months.

       After Mamdani won New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary in June, Trump warned he may use federal power to seize control if Mamdani becomes mayor. (Mamdani’s campaign did not respond to request for comment.)

       The Trump administration also sued to block New York City’s congestion pricing program, which would choke off a key revenue source to upgrade public transit, and warned it would withhold federal funding for transit projects if New York did not comply.

       Many of New York City’s power brokers are concerned about Trump’s public attacks against the city but also about the prospects of Mamdani’s victory. He has vowed to freeze rents on rent-stabilized units, make public buses free, implement universal child care and build affordable housing units. He said he would push state leaders to raise taxes on higher-income earners and corporations to pay for his plans. Many business leaders have lined up against him.

       “I wish I were hearing more from some of the business leaders expressing concerns about Zohran about these very real and present dangers that are not theoretical and are happening right now under Trump,” Lander said.

       He also acknowledged that the more precarious fiscal landscape Trump’s policies have created may make it tougher for Mamdani to push the state to adopt his programs.

       “Money that is needed to address cuts to Medicaid or SNAP or housing assistance is money that you can’t use to expand childcare or free buses or affordable housing,” Lander said.