The former president’s stance toward Wall Street and the greater business community in the event that he returns to Washington was indicated in conflicting ways by the signals he and his party gave during this week’s GOP convention.
One front is the emerging strain of economic populism that Trump and the GOP are endorsing.
For instance, Trump did something unprecedented at past GOP conventions by inviting a union official to speak on Monday night. Additionally, he personally chose Sen. JD Vance to be his running mate. Vance’s rise is based on his disagreement with traditional GOP doctrine on important economic issues including corporate taxes and dismantling Big Tech.
However, a number of other indicators this week pointed to a more business-friendly stance on these issues from Trump. They signaled the continuance of a pattern that has seen Trump alternately court and criticize CEOs during his nine years in presidential politics.
For instance, when Trump took the stage on Thursday night, he avoided echoing Vance’s populist tone and instead took the time to concentrate on a topic that is well-liked in C-suites: cutting corporate taxes.
He praised the 2017 corporate tax cuts that he signed into law, claiming that they had attracted companies back to the United States.
“The biggest tax relief was granted to you. “We’ll do it more,” Trump declared in a tax speech addressed at executives and voters alike.
In an interview with Bloomberg published this week, Trump also pondered naming Wall Street’s most well-known figure, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase (JPM), as Treasury secretary. The interview was done weeks ago.
In response to such thoughts, a source familiar with Dimon’s thinking told Yahoo Finance that “it’s highly unlikely that [Dimon] will take a political role” and that he will instead be concentrating on managing his bank, which is the biggest in the US.
‘We’ll manage just fine’
Trump is currently actively courting the business community.
Tech titans like Elon Musk of Tesla (TSLA) and Wall Street heavyweights like Steve Schwarzman of Blackstone (BX) have provided him with financial support. Before this election season ends, Musk may donate an astounding $180 million to a super-PAC that supports Trump.
The funders from the corporate sector seem content to keep donating, and discussions this week with knowledgeable watchers of Trump’s potential policy approach in 2025 revealed little concern that the populist stance frequently shown on Milwaukee stages will materialize into anti-business legislation.
Jonathan Gray, the president of Blackstone, stated, “Red, Blue, we’ll manage just fine,” during a live presentation on Yahoo Finance on Thursday.
Despite contributing more than $50,000 to President Joe Biden’s campaign, Democratic contributor Gray stated on Thursday that “if there is a movement here towards the Republican side, I’m confident we’ll navigate that.”
In a note to Yahoo Finance, strategist and chair of Whalen Global Advisors Chris Whalen was more direct.
He wrote, “Under Trump, the banking and mortgage industries would be handled fairly. However, there are still some unanswered problems, such as how the government handles government-sponsored businesses like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. However, a lot of the guidelines for how a Trump government would handle the banking industry are predetermined.
In recent months, the billionaire Trump has also frequently defended his plan to lower business taxes in front of CEOs and at private fundraisers.
The federal business tax rate is now 21%. Trump has suggested a 20% or 15% tax, but he wants it lower. He’s stated that he like round numbers, which accounts for a substantial portion of those amounts.
During his Thursday talk on corporate taxes from the convention stage, Trump stated that businesses “were bringing back billions and billions of dollars into our country… the tax rate was too high and the legal complications were far too great” in reference to the tax decrease he implemented in 2017. I modified the two of them.