| | | Haters gonna hate, liars gonna lie, MSM will never report the good news, and the libs will never lose an opportunity to fight hard against their own best interests. Some things never change. Meanwhile, back in the real world, GDP just came in at 4.1%. More jobs created per month during Trumps 1.5 years by far than in Obama's tepid, socialist era. Capitalism wins again.
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ft.com
Trump hails fastest US growth rate since 2014
Figure of 4.1% in second quarter ‘of historic importance’, says president
4 hours ago
A triumphant Donald Trump claimed credit on Friday for latest figures showing the US economy grew at an annual rate of 4.1 per cent in the second quarter, its fastest rate in almost four years.
“This is an economic turnaround of historic importance,” Mr Trump said, proclaiming that business confidence had reached “historic highs”.
He said his “America First” policies, including his tough stance on trade relations and pro-manufacturing, had delivered rapid jobs growth. “And we have only been in office a little over a year and a half,” he declared.
Speaking at the White House after the latest figures were announced, the president forecast that the US economy would continue to do “extraordinarily well” this year, saying he expected “outstanding” third-quarter growth.
However, the second-quarter performance came thanks to surges in consumption, business investment and exports that economists believe may make the result a high-water mark for the year.
The figures, which are the first estimate for the three months to June 30, were in line with Wall Street expectations and marked the fastest growth rate recorded since the third quarter of 2014, when the US economy grew at an annual rate of 4.9 per cent. In the first quarter of 2018 the US economy grew at an annual rate of 2.2 per cent, according to the US commerce department.
The result reflected in large part the impact of the fiscal stimulus resulting from the tax cuts passed late last year and was likely to cause the Federal Reserve to maintain its current course of quarterly rate increase to prevent the economy from overheating.
But it also included one-time factors that economists said would make the growth hard to replicate through the rest of this year.
Among those was an increase in exports that many economists believe was caused by foreign buyers of soyabeans and other US exports trying to get ahead of tit-for-tat tariffs imposed by the US and major trading partners such as China and the EU.
That trade effect is unlikely to be repeated in the months ahead, with economists now more concerned about the potential drag on growth of Mr Trump’s trade wars. Major US companies have blamed tariffs for higher costs and farm groups have complained of collapsing orders for commodities such as soyabeans and pork.
Paul Ashworth, chief US economist at Capital Economics, said the 9.3 per cent increase in exports in the second quarter had been distorted by an 80 per cent annualised jump in exports of foods, feeds and beverages driven mainly by a spike in soyabean and corn shipments to avoid tariffs.
Altogether, with imports increasingly only by 0.5 per cent in the second quarter, net trade had added a full percentage point to the overall GDP growth figure, Mr Ashworth said.
The US growth number is being watched closely ahead of midterm elections in November in which Mr Trump’s Republicans face the possibility of losing control of at least one house of Congress. |
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