A senior executive at global investment firm Blackstone has forecast that Donald Trump will use the military to close the United States border and possibly deport large numbers of illegal immigrants immediately on taking power as President in January.
Thomas Nides, Vice Chairman, Strategy and Client Relations at Blackstone, also said it was unclear to him whether Trump would lift tariffs on China given the upward pressure on inflation, which he believed had contributed to the Democrats losing office.
“I think what he will do very quickly is seal off the border and do some very serious stuff on immigration,” he told the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia conference in Sydney.
Nides, an investment banker and former U.S Ambassador to Israel and former Deputy Secretary of State in Democrat administrations, said Americans were concerned about illegal immigration and the impact on their economic security.
“I think he will, very quickly starting January 21st, use our military in some way to not only seal the border, but potentially deport a lot of people,” he said.
“That's not going to be simple to do, and we're not sure exactly the economic impact that may have.
“Remember, our country is not dissimilar to Australia. We need immigrants to fuel our economy, to do the jobs, to do things. So we'll see ultimately how impactful that is.”
Nides said there was no question the U.S. would have less regulation under a Trump administration and the tax cuts the President-elect put in place in 2018 would have to be extended when they fell due.
But it was not clear what the incoming President would do with tariffs, given that current President Joe Biden had not changed the $350 billion of tariffs that Trump imposed on China before he left office in 2021.
“The question is, how much more will President Trump do? How much is real? How much is it worth? I don't think we know, because I think one of the things that President Trump's learned inflation is a killer politically,” Nides said.
He said the Democrats had lost the election because of rising prices and the impact on the economic security of Americas, among other reasons.
“I do think that that President Trump is way more clever than even those of us on the other political side give him credit for. He's hypersensitive to middle class America, and I think he'll understand the impact it has but ultimately, the proofs in the pudding,” he said.
Nides also told the audience that Australian super funds should continue to be long term investors because “to invest based upon who wins the American presidency is insane”.
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