This story is part of WTOP’s ongoing series, Trump Impact, which looks at how the new administration could change the D.C. region.
Local business and elected leaders are bracing for the uncertainty of a second Trump administration, which was the topic of discussion among many of them at the Capital Area Economic Forum in Vienna, Virginia, on Wednesday.
One of the biggest talking points: What happens if federal jobs are lost?
“Even without something from the new administration, we have started to see a departure of federal jobs out of this region,” Terry Clower, with the George Mason University Center for Regional Analysis, told a packed room at the Westwood Country Club.
During his 2025 Washington Region Economic Forecast, Clower said that trend could accelerate if President-elect Donald Trump cuts workers’ jobs or moves federal agencies outside the region, such as when he moved the Bureau of Land Management to Colorado during his first term.
“That can be done by executive order, that does not require Congress to do anything,” Clower said.
He told the business leaders that this trend, along with the likely decrease of federal spending in the area, is causing economic uncertainty for the region.
“Just a degree of uncertainty that this region, quite frankly, has not faced in modern history. And if you have uncertainty, then it’s really hard to make that investment,” Clower said. “To expand your place, to start a new development, to try to take an old office building that is no longer market viable and do something else with it.”
“Well, if you don’t know where the economy is going, do you put the money in to do that? And the answer is probably not,” he added.
Clower said local municipalities and developers need to pivot away from dependence on government contracts.
“We need to support entrepreneurship that’s product based, not just services based, because it’s a higher value-added proposition, and that’s a different way of doing things. We have to be the place that welcomes new innovation,” he said.
He pointed to a highly educated workforce and local research centers that could help make the pivot.
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