I wonder when the US will face this problem? People look at me like I’m crazy but we have this very strong current of nativism. Yet the US population would decline if it were not for immigration. The Central Americans who make it to the US / Mexican border have gumption and will work hard at jobs these nativists won’t touch, or start shops and businesses. Either way they generate wealth for all these nativists to retire on. They either forget that or don’t want to think about it. If Trump had had 4 more years he might have completed the project of stopping southern border immigration by making the situation as monstrous as he could get away with, putting children in cages and all that. Then we would have begun the population decline doom loop.
Of course economic growth through population growth is not sustainable in the long run but as John Maynard Keynes pointed out, in the long run we’re all dead.