Donald Trump may better serve the U.S. economy than Hillary Clinton as president, as the presumptive Republican nominee is more likely to introduce fiscal stimulus, a well-known market strategist told CNBC on Wednesday.
Bob Janjuah, senior independent client adviser at Nomura, said Trump was more likely to cut taxes and take other measures to boost anemic job creation and economic growth in the U.S. Clinton, however, would be more likely to stick to the status quo and with a Republican-led Congress, would struggle to introduce reforms, he added.
“In the U.S. we have not had credible fiscal policy since (2008),” Janjuah told CNBC in London.
“Now don’t laugh, but if Mr. Trump is elected president, as a Republican, and you have a Republican Congress, you might get a fiscal package going. But if Mrs. Clinton is elected president and you have a Republican Congress — which is what you are going to have for another two years give or take — I don’t think they are going to get any fiscal policy in the U.S.,” he later added.
Official estimates suggest the U.S. economy grew by 0.5 percent annualized in the first quarter of 2016, sharply down from 1.4 percent in the last three months of 2015 and below forecasts for 0.7 percent growth.
Trump has previously said he could pay off the U.S.’s $19 trillion national debt within a two-term presidency and simultaneously cut taxes. The Washington Post said in an article in April that doing both would require the U.S. economy to grow by between 13 and 24 percent every year over Trump’s eight-year presidency.
“I think, working with Congress, he (Trump) could be (economically credible),” Janjuah said on Wednesday.
“(House Speaker Paul) Ryan is already kind of making noises that they may be able to work together. Not publically, ‘I’m going to work with him,’ but you can see in the background.”
Peter Morici, a business professor at the University of Maryland, also says a Trump Presidency would be better for the economy — but for different reasons to Janjuah.
In an opinion piece for Fox News on Monday, Morici said Clinton was devoted to the “economic micromanagement by government regulation” that yielded indifferent results under President Barack Obama.