The Blubber

Donald Trump no longer plans to ban TikTok.

Donald Trump plans to lower the US corporate tax rate to 15% if elected.

Polls show a very tight race between him and President Joe Biden, but his fundraising is through the roof. It’s also now clear his 34 felony convictions haven’t upended the race. A big shock will come two days later at the first presidential debate, and it will be Biden who’s left reeling. Then a bigger one will arrive on July 13, when Trump narrowly dodges an assassin’s bullet.

The Mar-a-Lago sitting room features a towering display of red balloons dotted with giant gold ones reading “47,” shorthand for the next president—a gift from a local admirer who attached a card gushing over “the best commander in chief America has ever known.” At Trump’s insistence, a staffer fetches the hot new fashion item he enjoys showing guests: a red MAGA-style cap emblazoned with “Trump Was Right About Everything.”

Outside Mar-a-Lago’s gates, the rest of the world isn’t so sure. There’s worry about what another Trump presidency could portend. Wall Street firms from Goldman Sachs to Morgan Stanley to Barclays have begun warning clients to expect higher inflation as Trump’s odds of recapturing the White House and imposing protectionist trade policies have risen. Giants of the American economy such as Apple, Nvidia, and Qualcomm are grappling with how further confrontation with China could affect them and the chips everyone relies on. Democracies across Europe and Asia worry about Trump’s isolationist impulses, his shaky commitment to Western alliances, and his relationships with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. And while polls universally show that American voters favor Trump’s stewardship of the economy over Biden’s, it’s unclear to many exactly what they’ll get if they opt for another round with him.

He waves away such concerns. “Trumponomics,” he says, equates to “low interest rates and taxes.” It’s “tremendous incentive to get things done and to bring business back to our country.” Trump would drill more and regulate less. He’d shut the Southern border. He’d squeeze enemies and allies alike for better trade terms. He’d unleash the crypto industry and rein in reckless Big Tech companies. In short, he’d make the economy great again.

That’s the sales pitch, anyway. The plain truth is that no one really knows what to expect. So Bloomberg Businessweek went to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, to press Trump for answers.

The broad strokes of Trumponomics might not be different from what they were during his first term. What’s new is the speed and efficiency with which he intends to enact them. He believes he understands the levers of power much more deeply now, including the importance of selecting the right people for the right jobs. “We had great people, but I had some people that I would not have chosen for a second time,” he says. “Now, I know everybody. Now, I am truly experienced.”

Trump views his economic message as his best route to trouncing the Democrats in November, with Republicans devoting the opening night of their presidential convention to the theme of “wealth.” He’s betting that his unorthodox agenda of tax cuts, more oil, less regulation, higher tariffs, and fewer foreign financial commitments will appeal to enough swing state voters to hand him the election. It’s also a gamble that voters will overlook the negative traits that characterized his first term in the White House: the personnel fights, the 180-degree policy shifts, the 6 a.m. social media pronouncements. And of course there’s the matter of the attempted insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.