Trump dismisses recession fears, though economists worry

World Today

More than a third of economists said the U.S. will be in recession by 2021, according to a new survey by the National Association of Business Economists.

That view has increased amid a raft of indicators from across the world.

But the Trump administration doesn’t agree, as CGTN’s Owen Fairclough reports.

A new survey of U.S. economists revealed 38% of them think there will be a recession by next year, or the year after, and that pessimism has risen since February when they were last surveyed.

But President Donald Trump doesn’t agree. “I don’t think we’re having a recession,”Trump told reporters on Sunday. “We’re doing tremendously well. Our consumers are rich.”

So if President and Wall Street can’t agree, who’s right?

Trump is accurate to a degree when he says the U.S. economy is doing well because it is still growing – though at a reduced pace – and unemployment is at record lows.

But that’s only half the story with world economies now so interdependent.

Germany has Europe’s strongest economy, but it’s contracting and the European Central Bank is thinking about restarting a stimulus program for the whole Eurozone.

And the impact of the China-U.S. trade war is clearly a threat to the U.S. economy because Trump just delayed the next round of tariffs, so they won’t hit consumer spending during the crucial holiday season.

And another possible indicator of a looming U.S. recession: government short-term borrowing costs are higher than those for the long-term. That anomaly has happened before every U.S. recession but one in the past 50 years.