Donald Trump touts economic plan to slash prices and taps Elon Musk to help
Donald Trump has unveiled a sweeping plan to lower prices and cut red tape and said he would appoint the world’s richest man Elon Musk to help him, as he put the economy at the heart of his White House campaign.
Speaking at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday, the Republican presidential candidate vowed to boost US energy output, cut taxes and reform the country’s regulatory regime — and sought to draw a contrast with Kamala Harris’s economic vision.
“She’s promising communist price controls, wealth confiscation, energy annihilation, reparations, the largest tax increase ever imposed and mass amnesty and citizenship for tens of millions of migrants who will consume trillions of dollars in federal benefits and destroy social security and Medicare,” Trump said.
“I am promising low taxes, low regulations, low energy costs, low interest rates, secure borders, low, low, low crime and surging incomes for citizens of every race, religion, colour and creed.”
The former president added: “My plan will rapidly defeat inflation, quickly bring down prices and reignite explosive economic growth.”
Trump said he would cull at least 10 regulations for every new one created and would appoint Tesla boss Musk to helm a new efficiency commission “tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms”.
Musk said on X that he would look “forward to serving America if the opportunity arises. No pay, no title, no recognition is needed.”
Trump’s speech, to an audience of Wall Street executives, comes as he and Harris vie to persuade Americans that they can fix high housing, grocery and other costs that remain a central issue for many voters two months ahead of the November 5 election.
While Harris, the Democratic candidate, has pledged to expand access to affordable housing and limit price gouging in the food sector, with a focus on the so-called care economy, Trump has made lower taxes, tariffs on imports and deregulation the cornerstone of his pitch.
“We delivered an economic miracle, which Kamala and Joe [Biden] turned into an economic disaster,” Trump said, as he blamed high inflation in recent years on Harris.
While inflation surged during Biden’s presidency after the coronavirus pandemic gummed up supply chains, it has eased dramatically since peaking in 2022. Inflation is now on track for the Federal Reserve’s 2 per cent target, making the central bank ready to lower interest rates this month.
The labour market has also remained historically healthy during this period, with record-setting jobs growth and ultra-low unemployment, as the economy has expanded at a healthy clip. Throughout all of this, the S&P 500 has notched fresh records.
Trump also vowed to deliver “energy abundance, energy independence and even energy dominance” if he wins the election by immediately declaring a national emergency to achieve a “massive increase in domestic energy supply”.
These actions would cut energy prices by at least half within 12 months of taking office, he claimed.
US oil and gas production has hit record highs during Biden’s presidency, although petrol prices and other energy costs are higher now than when Trump was in office.
Trump also repeated his plan to cut the corporate tax rate from 21 per cent to 15 per cent for companies that make their products domestically, while expanding tax credits for businesses focused on research and development.
Last month, Harris backed increasing the corporate tax rate to 28 per cent from 21 per cent. On Wednesday, she also proposed increasing the tax rate on long-term capital gains for the wealthiest Americans to 28 per cent, a less drastic increase than Biden proposed.
Both candidates’ proposals to change the US tax code would need to be enacted by Congress.
Trump’s remarks came as polls showed Harris leading him in several of the crucial swing states that will decide November’s election. The most recent FT-Michigan Ross poll also showed that more Americans trust Harris to handle the US economy than Trump.
He reiterated his hardline stance on immigration, repeating his plan for mass deportation of undocumented people. He would try to bar federal benefits from reaching undocumented people.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Kevin Hassett, the former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in the Trump administration, said the former president would “double down” on policies, including tariffs, that were a feature of his first term in office.
Trump has already announced plans for sweeping protectionist measures including a 10 per cent tariff on all imports and a more than 60 per cent levy on Chinese goods. On Thursday, he said his plan was a “pro-American trade policy that uses tariffs to encourage production here” and would lead to a “national economic renaissance”.
Many economists have warned that Trump’s policies would add to inflationary pressures, rather than dampen them, and potentially knock growth, while his plan to slash taxes further could also increase the US’s debt burden.
Hassett pushed back on those concerns, saying that there was “strong evidence of success”.
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