Trump to Sign Executive Order on Student Loan Forgiveness Program

President Donald Trump will sign an executive order directing the Education and Treasury Departments to make sure those who are in organizations supporting what he calls “illegal” activities can’t benefit from the Public Service Student Loan Forgiveness program, a White House aide said.

As part of the program, those working for the government or a non-profit organization have their loans forgiven after making the “equivalent of 120 qualifying monthly payments.”

The executive order,the aide said, will make sure “recipients who are engaged” in these sorts of activities can’t benefit from a program “that’s really not intended to support those sorts of things.”

Trump on jobs report

Trump announced the order while speaking about the economy in the Oval Office Friday following the release of the February jobs report.

U.S. employers added a solid 151,000 jobs last month, up from 125,000 in January. The unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.1%.

Trump attributed this to auto companies thinking “things are happening.”

“They’re already geared up,” Trump said.

Trump’s remarks come a day after he postponed 25% tariffs on many imports from Mexico and some imports from Canada.

Trump told reporters “there hasn’t been very much” disturbance in the economy because of the tariffs, as numbers have just come out, although the stock markets has experienced downturns.

“There could be some disturbance, a little bit of disturbance,” Trump said. “I solved a little bit of that because I have respect for our auto companies, and I gave them a little bit of a month reprieve because it was was unfair, although I’m sure they’ll take advantage of it.”

When asked whether recent federal government layoffs will weaken the labor market, the president said he doesn’t think so.

“I think the labor market is going to be fantastic, but it’s going to have high-paying manufacturing jobs as opposed to government jobs,” Trump said. “We had too many people in government. You can’t just do that.”