Is Donald Trump's re-election a wake-up call for Europe?

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen

(Image credit: JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images)

It was billed in advance as a nail-biting contest, but, in the end, the result was not even close. Donald Trump won a decisive victory in the US election. That has upset some people. But there seems little doubt his restoration will boost an economy that was already doing very well to start with.

His tax cuts, for example, will be significant, even if there is a risk that they will push up a deficit that is already running at 6% of GDP. The corporate tax cut from the first term will be extended, helping the competitiveness of America’s biggest companies, and some of the battier ideas that found their way into the Democratic manifesto, such as a plan to tax unrealised capital gains, will now be scrapped.

The wild spending of the Biden years on subsidising microchip manufacturing, and building green infrastructure, will come under far closer scrutiny. There is already evidence that the $500 billion, and potentially two or three times that amount given that much of it was in open-ended tax credits, has been badly spent, and all the country will ever have to show for it will be a series of white elephants. Trump was not the great deregulator in his first term that he claimed to be, but many of the rules Biden has imposed will be repealed and the web giants will be freer from regulatory scrutiny.

MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

The oil and gas industry, especially shale oil, which has made the US the biggest energy producer in the world, will receive a lot more support. And finally, the role of Elon Musk as an influential voice in the administration will be fascinating. Musk is almost as controversial as Trump. But there is no question he is a brilliant entrepreneur, and if anyone can work out how to cut government spending, he can. Put it all together and all this will turbocharge the economy.

Sure, there may be some mistakes along the way. The threatened tariffs of 60% on China and 10% across the board will be a disaster for the global trading system if they are put into effect, and, just as seriously, will trigger a big spike in US inflation. And unless Musk can really deliver the cuts in government spending that he talks about, the tax cuts may well send the deficit spinning out of control and trigger a bond-market revolt. Likewise, political interference in the Federal Reserve may well panic investors who hold dollars, and send the currency markets into turmoil. A lot will depend on who is appointed as treasury secretary and whether he or she can rein in some of the president’s wilder ideas.

How will Trump's policies impact Europe?

But the important point is that another spurt of rapid US growth will painfully expose the weakness of the UK, and the whole of the EU. As the recent report from Mario Draghi pointed out, the difference in real GDP between the US and Europe has widened from 17% in 2002 to 30% now. With the US growing at three times the annual rate of all the major European economies, and with productivity rising more rapidly, that is only going to widen.

The UK, with huge increases in taxes on business already crushing investment, looks as if it will fall even further behind. A relatively modest gap between the US and Europe has widened alarmingly. It now seems inevitable that the difference in GDP will rise to more than 50% over the next few years, and perhaps even higher.

This should be the wake-up call the continent needs to finally work out that its economic model has failed. It needs to find a more realistic path to net zero, given that energy costs in Europe are now twice those in the US, placing a crippling burden on what remains of manufacturing industry.

It needs to scale back welfare systems that have spiralled out of control and destroyed the incentives to work. And it needs to stop imposing more and more regulations and restrictions on business, given how few new companies it has managed to create compared with the US. Europe was already falling woefully behind the US, and that is only going to accelerate over the next four years. The only trouble is, there is very little evidence that either the UK or the rest of Europe is willing to change course.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years.

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.