In the early morning after the Nov. 5 presidential election, off-hours trading of futures contracts tied to American stock exchanges surged. They did so largely on the news that Donald Trump, the United States’s 45th president, would also be its 47th.
That news started an expected rally on Wall Street as well, during normal trading hours. The Dow, Nasdaq-100, and S&P 500 all soared to record heights on Nov. 6, ending at 43,729.93, 20,781.33, and 5,929.04, respectively. The price of bitcoins also reached new heights that morning, selling for 75,824.16 at its apex.
COVID-19 aside, most of the first Trump presidency is broadly considered to have been good for business and for workers, with significant economic and job growth. The Dow stood at 19,795.06 at the beginning of trading on Jan. 20, 2017, the day Trump was inaugurated, and rose to a height of 29,423.31 on Feb. 13, 2020, before COVID-19 tanked the market, or close to a 10,000-point gain over three years.
Unemployment fell from 4.8% when Trump took office to well below 4%. “The household survey [by the Bureau of Labor Statistics] finds that the unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent in September, marking the 19th consecutive month at or below 4 percent unemployment,” the White House Council of Economic Advisers announced in October 2019. “The unemployment rate is the lowest it has been since May 1969 — over 50 years ago.”
The White House economists added that “all Americans are benefiting from the labor market’s continued improvement” and provided numbers to prove the point. Trump, in tweets and speeches at the time, seemed particularly proud of the drop in unemployment among black people.
If Trump’s pre-COVID-19 success is reproducible, then the post-election rally was entirely rational. But is that the case? Many critics downplay Trump’s past economic success, arguing either that it was a fluke or that conditions on the ground will make things worse this time.
Luck of the deal
The fact-checkers at Snopes make the case for a fluke. Snopes labeled it as “true” that “U.S. Unemployment Reached 50-year Low Under Trump,” and then immediately added, “But no evidence showed Trump was responsible for causing the dip.”
Snopes contrasted the unemployment of black people during the Great Recession of 2008-2009, under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, with the unemployment rate during the Trump presidency, pre-COVID-19.
“In 2009, the unemployment rate among Black workers or African Americans steadily increased month-by-month, reaching an annual high of 16.1% in December,” Snopes reported. “Comparatively, the same measurement dropped to 6.6% in March 2019 and continued to decline over the course of the year, under Trump.”
Trump’s claim of low black unemployment was thus labeled true but largely beside the point.
“We determined no significant disruptions or changes in the country’s unemployment rate when Trump took office — the steady decrease is essentially indistinguishable from the Obama years after the recession,” the fact-checker reported.
If Trump simply benefited from an economic recovery during the first part of his term, then the case that he has no special competence in managing the economy becomes stronger. In this version, Trump was just lucky until he became extremely unlucky when a once-in-100-years worldwide pandemic broke out.
Stronger or weaker hand?
In most scenarios for why things will be worse this time, Trump’s likely White House advisers, Cabinet secretaries, and counterparts in Congress and the courts are said to be of worse quality now than when he first assumed the presidency.
White House personnel and Cabinet appointments are projected to be much different in a second administration. The pause of four years between administrations is one of many reasons for what may be a complete reshuffle.
Trump’s daughter Ivanka and husband Jared Kushner, the brainchild of the Abraham Accords, opening diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab nations, will not be in the White House in a second Trump administration, reportedly because of the toll the first administration took on their family.
Many former Cabinet officials are out as well. The turmoil caused by the Trump-fueled Jan. 6 riots drove a wedge between them and the president. Trump’s previous vice president, Mike Pence, ran against him in this year’s Republican primary.
The makeup of Congress will also be different. When Trump assumed office nearly eight years ago, Republicans had full control of Congress, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and the now-retired House speaker, former Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. The president eventually fell out with both men.
The break did not occur, however, until they helped him greatly. McConnell’s deft parliamentary maneuvering and Ryan’s legislative vision helped usher in a more originalist Supreme Court and an overhaul of the U.S. tax code that simplified it and boosted the economy.
Ryan left Congress to be replaced, eventually, succeeded as House speaker, after a couple of intermediaries, by the much less visionary Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), who is likely to return in the chamber’s top role. McConnell has stepped down from leadership. A replacement will have to be chosen as Republicans return to the majority in the Senate.
Worries and benefits
Trump’s likely personnel in a new administration and some of his ideas on the stump, particularly his fondness for tariffs, have some economically minded observers worried.
“Good news: some really bad economic ideas are off the table for a few years. Bad news: some really bad economic ideas are on the table for a few years,” wrote Daniel J. Smith, director of the Political Economy Research Institute at Middle Tennessee State University, in response to the news that Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris had lost and Trump had won.
But, for now, the broader business community appears inclined to give Trump the benefit of the doubt and hope for a return to the good times.
“Congratulations President Trump on your victory!” Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote on Nov. 6. “We look forward to engaging with you and your administration to help make sure the United States continues to lead with and be fueled by ingenuity, innovation, and creativity.”
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also rallied to news of his win. CEO Suzanne P. Clark congratulated Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance in a statement before getting down to business.
“We look forward to working with the Trump-Vance administration and Republicans and Democrats in Congress to preserve pro-growth tax policies, bring regulatory relief to business, harness the power of AI to drive American innovation, and expand an all-of-the-above energy production policy,” Clark said.
Jeremy Lott is the author of Warm Bucket Brigade: The Story of the American Vice Presidency.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
