What a Trump Presidency Would Mean to Global Economy
Hillary Clinton would have easily coasted to the presidency had it not been for FBI Director James Comey who has sent a letter to Congress, telling them that they are looking into new emails sent and received by Clinton in connection with Anthony Weiner, the former husband of Clinton’s closest aide, Huma Abedin. Since then, the race has tightened and Trump suddenly had the momentum needed to flip the states Clinton thought she has already secured.
Since the announcement, people in the stock market were said to have been very nervous. For most economists, a Trump presidency would mean economic disaster.
Trump has soared to popularity for his populist message. A lot of people believe that he is their guy when it comes to bringing their lost jobs back and in stimulating the economy. The central message of his campaign is to take the jobs “stolen’ by countries like Mexico and China, and this is said to have been positively received by the white working class men of the country. This is his strongest route to the presidency. His core “angry” supporters have stood by his side despite everything that he has said and done during this campaign.
Assuming that he succeeds
Let’s imagine for a moment Trump winning the presidency. He might have successfully slashed corporate taxes and lowered income taxes for the middle class. This is the usual trickle down economics strategy that Republicans have been campaigning on. Should this happen, wealth will continue to stay among the top 1% of the country. This could also lead to more job loss especially since more middle class people will become too poor to afford products and services. This would fail to stimulate the economy unlike what Trump has been promising.
Also, he has promised to stop companies from going to other countries by increasing tariff and punishing them for doing so. This is a perfectly fine idea. The sad truth though is that they can just abandon their company in the US altogether and register their business elsewhere. After all, whatever the US does, there will be more countries where labor is cheap and cost of production is low. This will still not lead to the implementation of his plans.
Trump’s personality
This is perhaps the biggest bane to a Trump presidency. Let’s say that all his plans are sane and logical. Let’s also assume that he really is sincere in bringing the jobs back and in making America great again. The problem here is that during this campaign, and even before, he has already disparaged a lot of countries. He has battled with Mexico over immigration by calling their people rapists and criminals. He has also hurt Israel for the anti-Semitic tones of his campaign, along with the racist supporters boosting his candidacy. He has maligned France, Germany, EU, NATO, UN and other strong global forces. This could leave US in a very bad place. Add to that the idea of Trump cozying up with Putin of Russia. If international relations are hurt, this could mean that the US will no longer be treated as the superpower it has been for generations.
You could still make the ultimate choice of voting for Trump, but don’t forget these repercussions.
Photo Attribution:
Featured and 1st image By Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
2nd imageBy Ali Shaker/VOA (http://m.voanews.com/a/3430146.html) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
