02/15/2026
U.S President Donald Trump is causing the United States’ first-ever population decline in its 250-year history.
According to Bloomberg, one well-regarded population estimate warns that 2026 is primed to be the year of the first real population decline.
One of the main reasons, Census officials say, is the Trump administration’s incredibly aggressive deportation campaign.
From July 2024 to July 2025, US Census data shows the total US population only grew by around 0.5%, or 1.8 million people, a rate that seems certain to slip into the negative.
The cause is a collapse in the migration rate from 2.7 million people in July 2024 down to just 1.3 million in 2025.
Prior to Trump’s return to office, the US population wasn’t expected to begin declining until around 2080, meaning Trump is setting the country up for a much earlier reckoning.
