The Trump administration puts political pressure on any country that signs a 5G contract with Huawei, according to the New York Times. To date, Huawei, the $100 billion Chinese giant, captured 40% of the global 5G market, and Trump thinks the only way to stop Chinese dominance in the global 5G space is to make like miserable for CEO Ren Zhengfei and his Huawei team.
Mr. Trump held a great trade deal over Boris Johnson’s head so he would throw Huawei to the tech curb. But Boris thinks Trump created some of the economic issues that keep hitting him over the head while he tries to work out a trade deal with the EU. Boris fought back when President Trump called him after the British press announced Huawei can’t work on top-secret tech stuff. But Boris wants Huawei to build parts of the U.K.’s 5G infrastructure. Mr. Trump got so worked up he slammed the phone down while Boris continued to explain his decision.
The economic fallout from the coronavirus is the unknown Jerome Powell talked about when he said the economy looks good, but there’s danger dead ahead if things continue to fall apart in Europe and China. China’s economic growth could take a 2.0% hit from the coronavirus. And the global economy will experience a slowdown thanks to the virus.
Mr. Powell thinks economic growth will be in the 1.8 to 2.0% range in 2020. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin still uses Trump’s 3.0% growth figure even though GDP growth dropped to 2.3% in 2019. Mnuchin warned a group the Boeing 737Max debacle could shave ½% of off growth. But he said other sectors like consumer spending and manufacturing will offset some growth loss.
The president’s plan to help the Democrats self-destruct looks like it is in play after the Iowa caucus debacle. Mr. Trump supporters jammed the phone line during the vote call-in, and that exacerbated the vote reporting fiasco.
Mr. Trump also planned to ruin Biden’s chance to run against him when he brought Biden and his son Hunter into the impeachment circus. Mr. Trump wants to run against Bernie or Pete because they only represent half of the Democratic voters.
But Trump doesn’t want to face Bloomberg. He knows Mike has enough money to win the nomination if moderate Democratic leaders make it hard for Sanders to win again.
