Trump protesters must fold up their banners for now
DONALD TRUMP’S decision not to visit the UK to open the new US embassy in London next month will have disappointed many – mainly the hordes of protesters who would have leapt at the opportunity to voice their disapproval of his idiosyncratic presidency. They will have to save their banners and righteous fury for another day.
Like a party guest who phones at the last minute with some improbable story to explain him not popping out on a rainy night, Trump’s excuse doesn’t quite ring true. He blames the previous president Barack Obama for striking a bad deal over moving the embassy from Grosvenor Square to south of the Thames when the decision was made during the Bush administration for primarily security reasons.
Mind you as a real estate developer he’s right about it being an “off location” and it is no doubt costing more than it should have done.
Next week sees the end of the first year of Donald Trump as US President and the consensus among virtually every mainstream media commentator is that he is a demented idiot who is bringing the world to the brink of disaster. But in truth is he that bad?
TO assess the fallout of his presidency I’ve been invited to appear alongside academic experts at the British Library in London to discuss Trump’s first year. And I don’t see anything too worrying.
His first year’s big legislative success has been his tax reform bill. Following on from George W Bush, who cut corporation tax from 39 per cent to 35 per cent, Trump has simply gone further: taking it from 35 per cent to 21 per cent. Britain’s is even lower at 19 per cent.
Trump is a businessman and believes this will boost the US economy. That’s why people voted for him. Certainly after a year in power US unemployment is down to 4.1 per cent, the lowest in seven years; the stock market is booming; interest rates are slowly climbing back to normality; and growth looks set to pass three per cent, more than Obama achieved. So no financial crisis there.
The wall with Mexico was his big vote winner, promising to control mass migration, just as Brexit did in the UK. But the