Business euphoria over Trump gives way to caution, confusion

News Hour:

Early optimism among business lobbyists and executives that Donald Trump’s election heralded better days has slowly given way to uncertainty as the president-elect fires off mixed and sometimes confusing messages on healthcare, taxes and trade.

An initial euphoria in the business world fueled a powerful post-election stock rally. Some of that has frayed as questions arise over the nuts and bolts of Trump’s campaign promises, although many in the business community said they remain optimistic, reports Reuters.

Doubts deepened over the weekend as Trump declared he would replace President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare plan known as Obamacare with “insurance for everybody” – a goal far beyond Republican designs – and criticized a key component of a plan in Congress to overhaul corporate taxes.

“It is fair to say that since the election, there has been mounting uncertainty about exactly what the specific policies are likely to be with regard to tax reform and replacing Obamacare,” a financial industry official said.

Expectations for faster growth, tax reform and a quick repeal of Obamacare, officially known as the Affordable Care Act, have “given way to ‘We are not really sure what he means by that’,” the official said.

A veteran Republican financial lobbyist said she is under constant pressure from clients to predict what the new administration is planning, but she has no reliable answers for them.

WRENCH IN OBAMACARE REPEAL

Trump appears to have thrown a wrench into Republican plans to repeal Obamacare with mixed signals on the details and timing of a replacement plan.

Congressional Republicans have focused on limiting government involvement in the healthcare system and eliminating the law’s individual mandate that forces people to have insurance.

But Trump told the Washington Post he was almost done with a plan to replace Obamacare with “insurance for everybody” while forcing drug companies to negotiate directly with the government on prices for Medicare and Medicaid.

Trump’s recent attack on the border adjustment tax was another sign of his unpredictability, the veteran financial lobbyist said.

That measure would tax imports and exempt exports in an effort to encourage companies to keep jobs and production in the United States. But in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Friday, Trump called the proposal “too complicated.”

“Anytime I hear border adjustment, I don’t love it,” Trump told the Journal. “Because usually it means we’re going to get adjusted into a bad deal. That’s what happens.”

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