US Elections 2024: Donald Trump shares plans for second term — from taxes to tariffs, inflation & China | Top 10 Updates

US Elections 2024: Donald Trump, former United States President and current Republican Party presidential candidate, has shared his plans for taxes, tariffs and his views on Jerome Powell of the US Federal Reserve, in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek.

The report noted that Trump is “promising a return to the way things were — before the COVID-19 pandemic”. He is trying to appeal to “voters and to business leaders who abandoned him,” the Bloomberg Businessweek report said.

But what are Trump’s plans or proposals? We take a look at the possible “Trumponomics” (Trump economics) ahead in case he wins a second term in the White House.

Top 10 Updates from Trump's Interview

• On ‘Trumponomics’: Bloomberg reported that Trump defined it as “low inflation, lower interest rates, higher growth, and, bringing manufacturing back to the US”.
• On plans to reduce inflation: Trump said he would open up more oil drilling and energy exploration in the US as a means of increasing the supply of energy and bringing down gas prices.
• On Jerome Powell's tenure as Chair of the US Federal Reserve: Trump said reports that he plans to remove Powell from his post at the central bank is “false information”. He added that under his government, Powell would be allowed to continue as Fed chair “as long as I think he is doing things right”. Notably, Powell was appointed to the post by current US President Joe Biden and his full tenure ends in 2028.

• On expectation from the Fed: Trump told Bloomberg he does not think the Fed should should cut interest rates before the election — the report noted that this implied he thought a rate cut would help Biden's perception.
• On corporate tax: Trump said he would cut corporate tax rate to as low as 15 per cent if back in the White House. The tax rate is currently 21 per cent and Democrats propose increasing it to 28 per cent.
• On trade policies: The report noted that Trump is a “big believer” in tariffs imposed on imported goods and said if re-elected, plans to increase tariff rates and impose more tariffs. On whether increased tariffs would impact the US economy negatively, Trump said “even really, really smart people do not understand tariffs” and that similar moves didn't wreck the US economy during his previous term or Biden's present term.

• On tariff impositions: In addition to targeting China for new tariffs of anywhere from 60-100 per cent, he said he would impose a 10 per cent across-the-board tariff on imports from other countries. His reasoning? Other countries do not import enough from the US.
• On China tariffs: The report noted that Trump seemed to take Biden's continuation of tariffs on China (imposed during Trump administration) and even increase of some tariffs as “vindication”.
• On US-Taiwan relationship in case of clash with China: Trump indicated to Bloomberg that if re-elected, the US' policy of defending Taiwan could change. He was “very cool to the idea of the US sort of standing up for and protecting Taiwan against Chinese aggression”, and argued that the Asian island nation has “stolen the US chips business”.
• On sector policies: The Republican platform has noted that another Trump presidency would scrap Biden's policies on renewable energy, electric vehicles (EVs), and “address illegal immigration” with the “largest deportation programme in American history”.

(With inputs from Bloomberg, AP and Reuters)