2020 US Elections: Trump loses his economic edge on a catastrophic handling of the coronacrisis

President Trump is losing the one field in which he led – the economy. That advantage was based on perception unrelated to reality and his failure to handle the coronavirus crisis is exacerbating that edge, Yohay Elam, an analyst at FXStreet informs.

Key quotes

“Zooming out to a yearly view, GDP growth stood at 2.8% in 2017 – which may partially be attributed to Obama's time – 2.5% in 2018, and 2.3% in 2019. That was better than in 2015 and 2016 but below the 2014 peak of 2014. Is Trump good for the economy? Overall, similar to his suggestion to inject disinfectants against COVID-19, Trump failed to create miracles for the economy.”

“Trump boasted that the jobless rate reached the lowest in 50 years, but the downtrend was already there. Obama did the heavy-lifting after the financial crisis, bringing it from around 10% to a 4.8% in January 2017 upon leaving the White House. The current occupant of the Oval Office did not face a jobs crisis like that endured by Obama, nor Bill Clinton in 1993.”

“Economically, it would have been better for Trump not to take the reopening gamble and lead to depressing the disease. The economy would have done worse in May and June but recovered faster afterward. Politically, that would have been wiser as well. Leaders that took the disease seriously have seen their approval ratings surge. That includes those whose response was not necessarily effective, such as UK PM Boris Johnson or his Swedish counterpart Stefan Löfven.”