TRUMP’S $1TRN BIG BAZOOKA
President to send cheques to American families to fend off economic disaster
DONALD Trump last night said he would send cheques to Americans as part of a $1trillion (£829billion) package to fight off the economic wreckage caused by coronavirus.
The US President planned to send out the money within weeks as senators called for handouts between $1,000 (£830) and $6,000 (£4,964) per person.
Mr Trump said he wanted to ‘go big’ and promised that the American economy would ‘pop back up like nobody has seen’ once the disease had been beaten.
The measures are akin to the $787billion (£651billion) package that Barack Obama signed after the 2008 financial crisis.
The announcement came as New York’s mayor Bill de Blasio said the fallout could be like the Great Depression – with food rationing even put in force. The Great Depression caused a 46 per cent drop in US GDP, it took four years for the recovery to begin – and 25 years for the stock market to fully bounce back.
America yesterday reached more than 5,000 cases of the virus with at least 93 deaths.
New York has the most infections at 967 with ten deaths and Washington state has the most deaths, 48, with 904 cases.
Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin last night said the measures announced by Trump would pump $1trillion into the US economy.
‘Let me just say this is a combination of loans. This is a combination of direct checks to individuals. This is combination of creating liquidity for small businesses,’ he said.
Mr Mnuchin told a meeting of Republican senators that the first $250billion (£207billion) would be sent out as cheques with more to possibly come if the crisis dragged on for months.
A $50billion (£40billion) aid package will also be given to the airline industry. The impact on their businesses had been ‘worse than 9/11’, he said.
Americans would be posted cheques ‘immediately’ and there would likely be some kind of means testing to stop the rich getting them.
Mr Trump said that ‘we’re going big’ and that he wants a ‘big infusion’ rather than an incremental approach. He said: ‘We don’t want people losing their jobs or not having money to live when they were doing very well just four weeks ago.’
Mr Trump did not put a figure on the cheques but a group of Senate Democrats have asked for $4,500 (£3,725) for every adult and child.
And the President yesterday bragged that Boris Johnson had changed his mind to adopt a strategy for dealing with coronavirus similar to that of America.
He said: ‘Now Boris in the UK yesterday, you saw what happened, it looked like they were going a different way but then he went a way similar.’
Mr Trump has for weeks played down the threat, comparing the virus to a minor flu. He only changed his tune on Monday but yesterday claimed that he ‘always viewed it as very serious’. He said: ‘Everything is going to come back – lives do not come back.’
After Trump laid out his plans the Dow Jones rallied nearly 6 per cent. The bounce was also helped by the US Federal Reserve announcing it set up a special fund to buy back short-term corporate debt.
Last night, vice-president Mike Pence said that the Army Corps of Engineers was getting ready to help turn buildings into field hospitals to deal with the surge of patients.
And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that funerals should now be streamed online – a measure previously imposed by Italy.
Donald Trump has sparked a diplomatic row with Beijing after calling the coronavirus a ‘Chinese virus’ on Twitter.
The President’s comments were yesterday condemned by China as ‘despicable’ and worsened US-China relations at a time they are already under intense strain over trade.
‘It’s worse than 9/11’