“The biggest challenge that we had is the employability level or the skill set which is so required,” Sitharaman said at an event hosted by The Economic Club of New York on Monday. Businesses often feel that graduate students don’t have the appropriate skills for the job at hand, she said.

Read More: India’s Main Challenge Is Skills Gap for Young, Sitharaman Says

Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman with IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna during a programme at the Economic Club of New York.

Read More: India well-positioned to capitalise on new growth opportunities, says Nirmala Sitharaman

One other moment stood out to me: the single mom who asked about child care. Trump has now been asked three key times about child care: first at the infamous CNN debate with Biden, second at his appearance at the Economic Club of New York and now in Wednesday’s town hall. All three times he gave a non-answer.

Read More: Did Trump’s all-female town hall achieve anything?

Weeks later, during a speech at the Economic Club of New York, Trump formally announced his support for a “government-efficiency commission” that would “conduct a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government.”

Read More: How Republican Billionaires Learned to Love Trump Again

Former President Donald Trump spoke to the Economic Club of New York in September, and he spoke to this idea of reducing regulations and opening federal land for large-scale construction. Can he do that easily at least?

AW : You then have to ask yourself, “Where is that federal land? Where is that relative to an employment center? Where is that relative to where people want to live? And how is the land-use regulation for that?” So you could open up the land, but then you still have to have the city decide what is the best use of this land. It’s a very good idea in theory. But once you run through the practical abilities of all of this, I’m not sure it’s really going to be the game changer we would hope it to be.

Read More: Why America’s Housing Shortage Is So Hard to Fix

In a recent speech at the Economic Club of New York, Trump suggested that tariffs could be used to solve seemingly unrelated challenges such as the rising cost of child care in the U.S., as part of a broader promise that tariffs can raise trillions of dollars to fund his agenda without those costs being passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices. That's a view with which many economists disagree since tariffs directly raise the prices of purchasing goods.

Read More: Tips, overtime, Social Security: A look at Donald Trump's no-tax pledges and what they might cost

Trump made the proposal during a speech at The Economic Club of New York, questioning why the U.S. does not have a sovereign wealth fund and saying his administration would make the country’s own fund “to invest in great national endeavors for the benefit of all of the American people.”

Read More: Donald Trump touts economic plan to slash prices and taps Elon Musk to help

"Regulation costs 30 percent of a new home, and we will open up portions of federal land for large-scale housing construction," Trump said in a speech at the Economic Club of New York. "These zones will be ultra-low tax and ultra-low regulations—one of the great small business job creation programs."

Read More: Kamala Harris, Donald Trump Plans for Housing, Child Care, Taxes Compared

“This commission will develop an action plan to totally eliminate fraud and improper payments within six months,” Trump said in a speech to a room full of business executives at the Economic Club of New York.

Read More: Trump adopts Elon Musk plan for government reform, lays out economic blueprint ahead of debate with Harris

The former president, in a lengthy speech to business and Wall Street leaders at the Economic Club of New York, returned to a topic that has been core to his political identity for decades — namely, an eagerness to tax imports.

Read More: Trump is more locked in on tariffs than ever before

Trump has warmly welcomed Musk's support. During a September 5 speech at the Economic Club of New York, Trump revealed plans inspired by the tech entrepreneur: "At the suggestion of Elon Musk, who has given me his complete and total endorsement... I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms."

Read More: Elon Musk Praises Trump's "Courage Under Fire" at Emotional Butler Rally

Trump has long wanted to reduce the corporate tax rate to below 21%. He unveiled his latest proposal earlier this month at the Economic Club of New York: a 15% rate for companies that make their products in the US, which on Tuesday he called “the centerpiece” of his plan for a manufacturing renaissance.

Read More: Here’s how Trump says he’ll help US businesses through tariffs and taxes

“I’m proud to be the only president in modern history to achieve a net regulatory reduction during my term, and it was a substantial reduction,” Trump said during a speech at the Economic Club of New York. “I’m pledging today that in my second term, we will eliminate a minimum of 10 old regulations for every one new regulation.”

Read More: Biden administration has imposed $1.7 trillion in regulatory costs, House Republicans find.

He has committed to conducting a complete financial audit of the federal government within six months of taking office. In a speech to the Economic Club of New York, he asserted, “As soon as I get to office, we will make housing much more affordable.” He criticized the Biden administration’s economic record, emphasizing that “as inflation is tamed, interest rates will dramatically fall.”

Read more: JP Morgan CEO backs Donald Trump's efficiency panel headed by Elon Musk; Here's what the committee will do


 

When asked this month how he would enact specific policies to help parents with child care, Trump said it was “a very important issue” before adding that it paled in comparison to the “trillions” he could add to the U.S. economy by levying new tariffs on imports. “As much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s relatively speaking not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’re taking in,” he said at an event hosted by the Economic Club of New York.

Read More: For some parents, surging child-care costs could determine how they vote

During a recent speech to the Economic Club of New York in which he outlined second term priorities, former President Donald Trump announced his intention to “create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government.”

Read More: Geographic Decentralization Of Government Could Have Bipartisan Appeal

Before former president Donald Trump spoke to the Economic Club of New York this month, he prepped for the crowd of Wall Street power brokers and other traditional business elites who would be in attendance.

Read More: GOP looks the other way as Trump pushes unorthodox trade proposals

Mr. Trump’s plan, which he outlined Sept. 5 at the Economic Club of New York, includes keeping the 2017 tax cuts in place permanently, reducing costly regulations, cutting government spending, and making smart use of tariffs to restore American manufacturing.

Read More: The Case for Trump’s Tariffs

Led by Mr. Trump, more Republicans have recently embraced tariffs as a potential source of revenue to finance tax cuts. And in a speech to the Economic Club of New York last week, Mr. Trump brought up tariffs when asked how he would lower child care costs and help more women enter the work force.

Read More: Trump Outlines Economic Ideas, Federal Efficiency Panel

In a speech on his economic policies earlier this month at the Economic Club of New York, former President Donald Trump outlined his plans for reducing prices by cutting back regulations to allow for more construction. But he said that “we also cannot ignore the impact that the flood of 21 million illegal aliens has had on driving up housing costs.”

Read More: Immigration bursts into election housing price debate