President Trump sounds smart when he comes up with a fresh plan to retire $15 trillion national debt.

Peter Prince

2018-08-07 07:33:00 Tue ET

President Trump sounds smart when he comes up with a fresh plan to retire $15 trillion national debt. This plan entails taxing American consumers and producers when they buy goods and services from countries subject to his tariffs. The taxes involve steel and aluminum taxes on western allies such as Canada, Europe, and Mexico as well as another 25% tariffs on $200 billion Chinese imports.

However, math seems to be on the other side of this healthy trade debate.

For the fiscal year 2018, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office projects the federal budget deficit to be $800 billion. The Office of Management and Budget projects an even higher deficit of $1 trillion in 2019. In other words, it is difficult for the Trump administration to remain fiscally neutral due to large infrastructure expenditures, tax cuts, trade barriers, and capital investment restrictions. The new Trump tariffs may bring in $100 billion in light of stable macroeconomic demand for imports from Canada, China, Europe, and Mexico.

In this negative light, the Trump administration may not be able to curtail the current budget deficit. In order for the Trump administration to balance the U.S. budget, it would require imposing 40% tariffs on almost all $2 trillion imports. The American dream of total national debt elimination thus seems remote.

In the alternative positive light, it is still plausible for the Trump administration to attain fiscal neutrality in the medium term. If the Trump administration successfully boosts 2.5% real GDP economic growth to 3% or above by 2020, the annual U.S. fiscal revenue may increase from $4.5 trillion to $5.4 trillion. The additional $900 billion fiscal intake can then offset the current U.S. budget deficit. In other words, these pro forma calculations suggest that whether Trump can keep his promise to retire national debt depends on medium-term real GDP economic revival.

Overall, 3%+ real GDP economic growth determines whether President Trump can fulfill his economic MAGA mantra.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

Daniel Goleman explains why working with emotional intelligence helps hone our social skills for smarter, better, and more effective leaders, teams, and organizations in modern life, business, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

Fiona Sydney

2025-07-05 11:23:00 Saturday ET

Daniel Goleman explains why working with emotional intelligence helps hone our social skills for smarter, better, and more effective leaders, teams, and organizations in modern life, business, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

Former New York Times science author and Harvard psychologist Daniel Goleman explains why working with emotional intelligence helps hone our social skills f

+See More

The SEC sues Elon Musk for his August 2018 tweet that he has secured external finance to convert Tesla into a private company.

Amy Hamilton

2018-09-29 12:39:00 Saturday ET

The SEC sues Elon Musk for his August 2018 tweet that he has secured external finance to convert Tesla into a private company.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (S.E.C.) sues Elon Musk for his August 2018 tweet that he has secured external finance to convert Tesla into a privat

+See More

Top 4 U.S. richest people are self-made billionaires: Gates, Buffet, Bloomberg, and Zuckerberg.

Dan Rochefort

2017-08-01 09:40:00 Tuesday ET

Top 4 U.S. richest people are self-made billionaires: Gates, Buffet, Bloomberg, and Zuckerberg.

In American states, all of the Top 4 richest people are self-made billionaires: Bill Gates in Washington, Warren Buffett in Nebraska, Michael Bloomberg in N

+See More

Our proprietary alpha investment model outperforms most stock market indices from 2017 to 2020.

Andy Yeh Alpha

2020-02-02 10:31:00 Sunday ET

Our proprietary alpha investment model outperforms most stock market indices from 2017 to 2020.

Our proprietary alpha investment model outperforms the major stock market benchmarks such as S&P 500, MSCI, Dow Jones, and Nasdaq. We implement

+See More

Amazon faces E.U. antitrust scrutiny over the current e-commerce use of merchant data.

Olivia London

2019-08-16 17:37:00 Friday ET

Amazon faces E.U. antitrust scrutiny over the current e-commerce use of merchant data.

Amazon faces E.U. antitrust scrutiny over the current e-commerce use of merchant data. The European Commission probes into whether Amazon uses key third-par

+See More

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon defends capitalism in his recent annual letter to shareholders.

Chanel Holden

2019-04-26 09:33:00 Friday ET

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon defends capitalism in his recent annual letter to shareholders.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon defends capitalism in his recent annual letter to shareholders. As Dimon explains here, socialism inevitably produces stagnat

+See More