Jamie Dimon thinks Trump was ‘kind of right’ about a lot of things. What?
The CEO of JPMorgan Chase, America’s largest and most powerful bank, is defending Trump’s record. This is absurd
On
Wednesday, speaking from the World Economic Forum’s confab in Davos,
Switzerland, Jamie Dimon – chair and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest
and most profitable bank in the United States, and one of the most
influential CEOs in the world – heaped praise on Donald Trump’s policies
while president.
“Take a step back, be honest,” Dimon said.
Trump “was kind of right about Nato, kind of right on immigration. He
grew the economy quite well. Tax reform worked. He was right about some
of China. He wasn’t wrong about some of these critical issues.”
What?
Mr Dimon, take a step back, be honest.
Kind of right about Nato? Trump wanted the US to withdraw from Nato – and may get his way if he becomes president again. This would open Europe further to Putin’s aggression.
Kind of right on immigration? Even the conservative Cato Institute found that Trump reduced legal immigration but not illegal immigration.
Trump refused to grant legal status to children of immigrants born in
the United States or who grew up in the US. He banned Muslims from the
US, and when the Muslim ban was found to be unconstitutional, banned
people from Muslim countries. He fueled the flames of nativism by
describing poorer nations as “shitholes” and has used terms redolent of
Nazism to describe foreigners as “poisoning the blood” of Americans.
Grew the economy quite well? In fact, under Trump the economy lost 2.9m
jobs. Even before the pandemic, job growth was slower than it has been
under Biden. The unemployment rate increased by 1.6 percentage points to
6.3%. The international trade deficit that Trump promised to reduce went up. The US trade deficit in goods and services in 2020 was the highest since 2008 and increased 40.5% from 2016. The number of Americans lacking health insurance rose by 3 million. The federal debt held by the public went up, from $14.4tn to $21.6tn.
Tax reform worked?
Trump’s tax cut conferred most of its benefits on big corporations and
the rich, while enlarging the budget deficit. Giant banks and financial
services companies got huge gains based on the new, lower corporate rate
(21%), as well as the more preferable tax treatment of pass-through companies.
If not for the Trump cuts – along with the Bush tax cuts and their extensions –
federal revenues would keep pace with federal spending indefinitely,
and the ratio of the debt to the national economy would be declining.
Instead, these tax cuts have added $10tn to the debt since their enactment and are responsible for 57% of the increase in the debt ratio since 2001, and more than 90%
of the increase in the debt ratio if the one-time costs of bills
responding to Covid-19 and the Great Recession are excluded. Eventually,
the tax cuts are projected to grow to more than 100% of the increase.
Right about China? As the Brookings Institution found,
Trump’s China policy only made China less restrained in pursuit of its
ambitions. Confrontation has intensified, areas of cooperation have
vanished, and the capacity of both countries to solve problems or manage
competing interests has atrophied.
Oh, and
then there are the pesky matters of Trump’s seeking to overturn the
results of the 2020 election, facing 91 criminal indictments, causing
the US to be more divided than at any time since the Civil War, lying
every time he opens his mouth, and planning to use the justice
department for “vengeance” against his political enemies if elected
again.
Why is Jamie Dimon – the most influential CEO in America – spouting these talking points in favor of Trump?
Because he thinks Trump has a good chance of becoming president, and Dimon wants to be in his good graces.
Asked
which candidate would be better for his business, Dimon said: “I have
to be prepared for both. I will be prepared for both. We will deal with
both.”
Dimon knows that his support for Nikki Haley irked Trump.
“Highly
overrated Globalist Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMORGAN, is quietly
pushing another non-MAGA person, Nikki Haley, for President,” Trump said
in a post
on Truth Social in late November. “I’ve never been a big Jamie Dimon
fan, but had to live with this guy when he came begging to the White
House. I guess I don’t have to live with him anymore, and that’s a
really good thing.”
So now, Dimon – like
Republican lawmakers across the US, like too many other leaders of
American institutions – feels it necessary to cave into the
integrity-crushing intimidation of a Trump administration, and lick
Trump’s backside.
And when Dimon does this, you can bet many other CEOs and financial leaders will now follow his example.
At
a time in American history when the most influential leaders of the US
need to stand up loudly and clearly for the rule of law, for democracy,
for decency, and against Donald Trump, Dimon is leading the charge in
the opposite direction.
This is how fascism takes root and spreads.