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This is Bloomberg day Break Weekend, our global look at the top stories in the coming week from our day Break anchors all around the world. And ahead on the program, we looked at the EV market and second quarter earnings from Tesla. I'm Tom Busby in New York.
I'm Karlin Hepger here in London, where we're looking ahead to the Paris Olympics, that costs from the spectacle.
I'm Brian Curtis in Hong Kong. We look ahead to the way Asian countries might be gaming, our differences in policy between President Biden and former President Donald Trump.
That's all straight ahead on Bloomberg Daybreak Weekend on Bloomberg E Loove on three own New York, Bloomberg in ninety nine to one, Washington, DC, Bloomberg one O six one, Boston, Bloomberg nine sixty, San Francisco, dav Digital Radio, London, Sirius XM one nineteen and around the world on Blue Bomberg Radio dot com and via the Bloomberg Business App.
Good day to you. I'm Tom Busby. We begin today's program with some highly anticipated economic data here in the US. Out this week, an initial look at second quarter GDP on Thursday and PC core inflation data on Friday. How might those numbers impact the feds monetary and interest rate policies moving forward?
Well.
For more, we turned to Stuart paul, Us, economist with Bloomberg Economics. Now, Stuart, let's start with that economic growth number for the spring's second quarter, A pretty mild GDP number one point three percent in the first quarter. What are you expecting in the spring.
We're expecting a very modest uptick. Our base cases for headline GDP growth to register a one point eight percent annualized pace of growth. So we're slightly above the consensus, which is at one point seven percent. And so there's a very modest uptick in headline growth in the second quarter. And the real question is what's behind that acceleration and growth, Because it's not personal spending. We expect personal spending growth to essentially be constant at one and a half percent.
What's really driving that headline growth number in the second quarter is an accumulation of inventories. And inventories can rise for two different reasons. Producers can be really optimistic about the growth outlooks, so they start stocking shelves and anticipation of future demand, or they could just misjudge growth accidentally overproduce goods and they find themselves carrying this inventory that they didn't intend to actually produce in the first place.
And we think that it's more of the second. We think that it's more a misjudging of the durability of the American consumer in the present. So we think that one of the key fundamental drivers of growth in the second quarter is the sort of accidental accumulation of inventories.
And so we're really thinking about growth in the first half of twenty twenty four relative to growth in the second half of twenty twenty three, and the pace of growth when you look second half of twenty twenty three and into the first half of twenty twenty four has basically been cut in half. And a big part of that is the cooling labor market. Consumers are becoming a little bit more prudent, and as a consequence, firms find
themselves a little bit over stuffed with inventory. So as we head into the second half of the year, we expect production rolls to slow and we expect growth to cool in the second half as well.
Okay, so we see a labor market cooling a little bit. We do see inflation cooling a little bit. But the several months in a row of solid manufacturing data that we have, the factory orders, durable goods orders, that's a false flag.
You're saying some of it is because of a backlog in autos, right, the fleet is older, there's still a turnover that needs to take place. There is real underproduction of autos when there was a semiconductor shortage, so there's still a little bit of a catch up there. Auto sales in June will effect a little bit by a cyber attack, so there's still going to be some chunkiness to some of the data. There are still orders of some other transportation goods like aircraft, so there is some
larger explanatory variables. They are separate apart from what we would think of as typically affected by monetary policy, typically affected by the business cycle. There are some of these lagging consequences of COVID that are still showing up in the data and making the data a little bit chunky.
Oh boy, so will these build ups of inventories, whether it's cars, whether it's clothing, whether it's housing, appliances. Is that a good thing for consumers in the months ahead, I mean they're going to have to clear out these storerooms and warehouses.
We think that it can lead to some discounting of consumer durable goods, and consumer durable goods are typically dragging on inflation. We do see just through time, this was true pre COVID as well, that consumer durable goods really
dragged on headline inflation. And for the inflation outlook, the thing that's going to matter most is really inflation in some select services categories, things like homeowner's insurance and auto insurance, where the price of autos rose a lot, so the replacement cost of autos rose a lot, and so what you should be paying in insurance premiums is now rising a lot. So there's a little bit of this catch
up inflation that's taking place. That's booying inflation separate and apart from the dynamic that's taking place in goods, where we do expect to see some discounting because of that accidental build up in inventories.
Well that would be nice to see. Well, let's stay on inflation, because we're going to turn to that PCE price index for June the FEDS preferred measure of inflation. Are we going to continue to see evidence that inflation is cooling? I mean, we're not getting worse, that's right.
So CPI inflation and PPI inflation are both pretty good for June. And when we map CPI and producer prices PPI in to that core PCE space so that we can get a good feel of the Fed's preferred measure, we estimate that annual core PCEE inflation is going to register two and a half percent in June. That's down from two point six percent in May. And if we look on a monthly basis, we're expecting to see core
inflation of just zero point one percent. Now, that'll give us the third month in a row where the monthly pace of inflation is pretty consistent with the fed's two percent inflation target, and that should give the FED some confidence to cut rates this year. We think starting in September and.
Three months in a row is exactly the kind of consistency they were looking for. So we do have a FED meeting later this month at the very end of July. It's the September one that is the focus for everybody, right that By then we will have data on jobs and data of inflation for July and for August. Is that the one where we may really see the holy grail everyone's been waiting for.
I think that's right. I think that September is going to be the month where we finally get a cut. I think that the July meeting that's coming up is actually going to be pretty the uneventful. We could get some communications from the FED Chairman at the post meeting press conference that sort of sets this stage for cuts
this year. Then all the FED officials go to Jackson Hole for their annual symposium where they discuss a lot of academic papers, and there is typically a pretty well attended speech by the FED Chairman that always serves as an opportunity for communications to set the stage for that September cut that will then follow. And then we get the September meeting, and I think that could be the one.
Wow.
A lot to look forward to. Second quarter GDP out this Thursday. The PCE price Index for June on Friday are thanks to Stuart paul Us, economist with Bloomberg Economics. Well, next we move to the auto space and ev Giant Tesla. The world's most valuable automaker report second quarter earnings on Tuesday, and for more. We're joined by Steve Mann, Bloomberg Intelligence,
Global Autos and Industrials research analysts. So, Steve, it's been kind of a challenging time for most ev makers, sales still growing a lot more slowly, but Tesla, at least on Wall Street, is on our role. What are you expecting to see in Tesla's second quarter earnings on Tuesday.
Yeah, their stock has been doing really, really well. You know, a lot of it is related to the robo taxi that they have planning to announced in October. They were originally saying August, now it's in October. But if you look at the underlying business, the auto business, it's still challenging. You know, second quarter sales are down year every year.
But we still think their earnings can actually beat consensus by like twenty to twenty five cents, mainly on you know, lower raw material costs on the battery side, as well as you know, cyber truck production is ramping up. They you know, produce eleven thousand in the second quarter, up from thirty five hundred in the first quarter. So overall earnings in the first quarter should be better than what people expect.
So Tesla's delivery numbers rising from I would say a pretty tough first quarter when GM and FOD they're not seeing the same kind of dem I mean, can you compare the products or is Tesla that much more desirable the demand for those products so much better?
Yeah, well, Tesla does have a cachet in the EV space, but look, I think you know they're going to face challenges. GM and other companies like Stilentis. They're not waiting, they're not holding back. Even though EV sales are slow in the recent quarters, they're still investing a lot of money in introducing new products. You know. For example, GM introduced the new Blazer not too long ago, and then another one, a more affordable one, the Chevrolet Equinox. And you're seeing
that across the board. A lot of the automakers are introducing more affordable evs. And that's what I think the industry needs to do, is to cater to the bigger masses, the bigger audience in the auto market by introducing a lower, more affordable EV.
Well, nowhere is that more then in China and the EV maker byd on track to overtake Tesla and sales in that country this year, and it's just one of many competitors. Some of their cars going for about thirteen thousand US dollars over there. How is Tesla competing against that?
That market is just crazy. I mean, the price war is not only impacting the EV markets, impacting everyone including internal combustion engine vehicle makers like BMW. It's a crazy market over there. Tesla is actually doing fairly well over there. They've actually held back on any price cuts, but they are providing some better financing terms for some consumers. Sales have actually, you know, fallen off a little bit, but overall they're still producing a lot in their factories, shipping
them overseas in Europe. But overall, you know, Tesla, I think it will bounce back, you know, once this price for kind of subsides.
Now, let me circle back with you on the ROBOTAXI. I mean, we have been hearing about this autonomous cab for six seven years, A delay, delay, delay. We are going to expect to see it August eighth, Now it's October. What do you think? What is the real reason or as Kathy Woods of our management said, he wants to wow us, and it's going to be even better than we expected.
Yeah. I mean, if you look at their stock price, we did some of the back of the anvelope calculation. Most of the stock price is valuing Robotaxi and AI. You know, Elon must have talked about robotaxi for a long time, and I think this is an event that's going to be mostly watched to see how they're going to move AI, you know, into the cars. They're going to probably announce or give some updates on the Optimus humanoid robots. It's going to be a huge event for us.
You know, Robotaxi is only I think. I think one component of what Elon Musk is trying to do. Rye hailing is probably going to be a small part of that business for them. There's a lot of opportunities for robo taxi. You know, his mantra is really about driving sustainability,
lower consumption or lower greenhouse gases. These Tesla vehicles, you know, if you think about it, they're actually battery on wheels, so other than taking the passenger from zero point A to point B on the rye hailing business, you know, I think what Kathy Wood and others are thinking about. Is these cars could be used for distributed power, offsetting peak power in one region to the next.
Wow.
Well a lot to look forward to Tesla's second quarter earnings after Wall Street's closing bell on Tuesday, Our thanks to Steve Man Bloomberg Intelligence, Global Autos and Industrials research analysts, coming up Bloomberg day Break Weekend. Can France win an Olympic gold in profitability? We look ahead to the twenty twenty four Summer Olympic Games in Paris. I'm Tom Busby and this is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg day Break Weekend, our global look ahead at the top stories for investors
in the coming week. I'm Tom Busby in New York. Up later in our program we'll look at how the US presidential election in November may shape US China relations going forward. But first, the French capital prepares to host the greatest show on Earth. But will it be worth it? The Olympic Games famously expensive, very rarely profitable. Will Paris be able to convert athletic prowess to economic gain? And for more, Let's go to London and bring in Bloomberg Daybreak Europe anchor Caroline hepgar Tom.
Much like an Olympic marathon, the road to Paris twenty twenty five four has already been filled with ups and downs. The journey has been punctuated by obstacles, from funding challenges to more recent political uncertainty and local dissatisfaction at the perceived inconveniences that the Games could bring. Central two discussions has been the question about whether Paris's iconic river Senn will be clean enough in time to welcome Olympic swimmers
onto its banks. Recently, the Paris mayor and Idalago took a dip in the river herself plus some journalists in a bid to prove its cleanliness. France has earmarked one point four billion euros that's about one and a half billion US dollars for improving the water quality of the river, amid lingering concerns that the overflows from the city's sewage system bring waste water and bacteria into the Seine, making
it unswimmable. President Immanue and macar is even committed to a swim in the river at SCE some point, although given the country's current political situation, he may find it difficult to find the time cleaning up the river and reversing a centuries old ban on swimming in It has been a long and complicated project for French authorities, the peculiarities of which I've been discussing with Bloomberg's investigations Reporter gasper seabag.
Well, the issue here is that when it rains a lot, the sewage system in Paris overflows and that brings wastewater and bacteria into the Seine, which obviously isn't what you want.
No indeed, and the weather has been particularly rainy across Europe, how has it been in Paris lately?
It's not being fantastic. I mean, June was pretty horrendous and that obviously translated into the quality of the water not being adequate. For basically most of the days of June. July has been much more positive and we've seen several days in a row being at the right quality standards, and in fact, the Sports Minister Amelie Udia Castella took a dive into the seine to show that it was it was okay for athletes.
To go in.
So how have they done us.
Well?
There's a huge variety of efforts that have been deployed in Paris. It's it's taken several years. There's some which really got the spotlight, like creating a huge water bisin in the depth of Paris, which was you know, they they excavated and they created this huge capacity to increase the possibility to store those overflows from the sewage when
it rains. That I was talking about. But there were a lot of smaller tasks, some quite For example, they had to go knocking on doors to make sure that households were connected to the sewage system because the reality, the grim reality of all of this is that some were just pumping their toilets directly into the sein. Again not at all what you want to achieve. The result of having athletes a jump into the sin and feeling comfortable about it.
So that was Gaspar Sibag speaking to me. But murky rivers aren't the only problem facing the Paris Olympics. Organizers also faced the challenge of extracting lasting value from these games, economic gain being perhaps the most sought after prize ever since the first Olympics was held over a century ago. The Games have been known for dazzling sporting feats, but
also dizzying expense, particularly for opening ceremonies. Recently, the ballooning cost of hosting the Games led residents in Austin, in Rome and in Oslo to reject efforts to bring the Olympics to their cities. As a result, the International Olympic Committee is hoping to reign in costs, starting with Paris. Well joining me for a discussion around this and how Paris is trying to do things differently and keep the costs of the Games down is Bloomberg's Hugo Miller.
Well. I sat down with Sebco for the Big Take that we wrote on this topic recently, and what he told me was something fascinating was that the architect of the modern Games in Los Angeles in nineteen eighty four said to him the most important thing you do, as he was preparing to run the twenty twelve London Games, was learned to say no. And the trouble is that the Olympics for too long have not been able to say no. In other words, when in doubt, they've added
another ceremony, another event, just to kind of make the whole spectacle that much more spectacular, and over the years the Games have got bigger and more bloated. For the better part of three decade.
Well, and only one of the games is actually ever managed to be profitable, and that was Los Angeles in nineteen eighty four. How did they manage to do it, even though of course it's quite a long time ago.
Indeed, that was the culmination of a bad decade for the Olympic movement. You had in nineteen seventy two, the tragedy of the murder the terrorists murder of eleven Israeli athletes in seventy two, and in Montreal in seventy six, you had a massive cost overruns, which led taxpayers in Montreal to still be paying for the Olympics four decades later. And things got so bad that the citizens of Denver actually said, after being awarded the Games, no thanks, we
don't want them. So basically, by the time you got to nineteen eighty you had just two cities bidding for the games, Los Angeles and Tehran. And as we know, the history books tell us, Iran was rapidly overtaken by revolution.
So you've had la alone. And what that allowed Peter Uberov, this businessman who was fronting the games, to do is to tell the IOC, you know what I'm going to do these games the way I want to do them, and that means we're going to reuse student dorms for the athletes, We're going to reuse existing stadia like the Coliseum and the Rose Bowl, and we're not going to build for the sake of building. And he was the first and to date, as you say, the only person to deliver the games on profit, on time.
Well, what about Paris? What is France doing to rain in the costs and try to bring it home profitably for them?
Paris, even cynics would say, Paris so far looks like it's learned the lessons from the past and taking a queue from the IOC, is set to deliver a balanced
budget for its games. It's done so by keeping the construction of new infrastructure to a minimum, primarily just to revitalize the northern neighborhood of San Denis in Paris, but really a focus on private sector involvement, to keep the operating budget down to four point seven billion dollars and then to keep the surrounding infrastructure spending to another four and a half billion, which, when you compare it to the boondoggle that was such a in twenty fourteen or Beijing.
It's a fraction of those costs.
So I feel so expensive. Why do cities? Why do countries keep on bidding or wanting to take part? What do they gain from it?
When it comes to democracies, Many of these democracies simply say no, And we had taxpayer revolts in Stockholm, in Boston, in Rome, as we discussed. But I think there is just this irresistible urge, particularly in emerging markets and authoritarian countries that still seek kind of soft power to be
gained from host the Games. So that's why you saw Puchin trying to kind of burnish Russia's legacy well after the Cold War is over with the such a Games, and the Chinese Communist Party looking to do it not once but twice with the Summer and Winter Games in Beijing. It seems like there's a certain sort of authoritarian swagger, as we put it, that they feel comes from hosting the Games that the Western democracies don't really feel anymore.
Having said that, maybe there are some benefits. For example, if France manages to clean up I know that the main river the send in Paris, for example, I mean that's expensive, but perhaps could be seen as quite.
Worthwhile indeed, and to listeners and readers, I have to give a shout out to my colleage Jenny Cha who did in deep job in the same as Paris Mayor and Hidalgo yesterday to experience the send for herself going to every.
Length as a Bloomberg report.
I like it she did, and I think that that is a sensible legacy that we should collectively sit dwellers aimed for is that London could regenerate part of the east end of the city twelve years ago, that Paris can turn the sin into a swimmable asset. And these are fantastic legacies, and these are what we should be
aiming for. What the IOC doesn't want to see anymore, and what I don't think any taxpayer should want to see is instead where you see things like what happened in Rio de Geneiro, where they built all this infrastructure for sports that locals just didn't use and sat there like white elephants within months of the game's ending.
Yeah, in London, interestingly, the eastern part of the city that was redeveloped is really being absorbed, has been absorbed into the cattle, which is interesting, which brings me to my last thought about long term economic and development gains. Do those emerge, where have they emerged? Most will they emerge from the Paris Games.
I think it remains to be seeing what the parish organizers say is four billion dollars depending on your perspective, as a lot or amount of money when you're talking about public spending on infrastructure. But the aim is to take a more depressed, or at least to put bluntly poorer part of the city that hasn't necessarily benefited from public spending and create things like swimming pool sports facilities for local residents in the northern part of the city.
That hopefully will prove to be the case in the years to come. But as we've seen over and over and over again, there is a history of overrun and overspending. But hopeful in Paris is the exception to that unfortunate rule.
So that was Hugo Miller and of course not long to go now. Paris begins its Olympics extravaganza with an opening ceremony along a six kilometer route taking in all of the Paris sites we expect, right along the River Sene. On the twenty sixth of July. I'm Caroline Hepger here in London. You can catch us every weekday morning for Bloomberg Daybreak Europe, beginning at six am in London, that's one am, Tom.
Thank you, Caroline, And coming up on Bloomberg day Break weekend to look at how the US presidential election may shape relations between US and China. I'm Tom Busby on This is Bloomberg. I'm Tom Busby in New York with your global look ahead at the top stories for investors in the coming week. How will the US presidential election shape the relationship between the US and China? For more, Let's go to Bloomberg Daybreak Asia co host Brian Curtis in Hong Kong.
Tom, the twenty twenty four US election will be critical in setting the chorus for relations with China and indeed all of Asia over the next four years. Broadly speaking, both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump want to be tough on China, and in fact both want to step up the pressure and enact even tougher policies, but they will take different paths. Biden will be more ideological,
Trump more transactional. Now, President Biden says the US would force fully respond to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, while former President Trump hinted to Bloomberg he'd want to see the US get paid for it. Earlier, Bloomberg's Rome var Geese weighed in on Trump's comments.
It's never been a question the United States would protect Taiwan against Chinese aggression. But here he is saying what's in it for us? And I think that's the common thread throughout all of these policies and all of his statements. It's I'm not going to take anything for granted, and I'm going to see what's best for me and what's the best for the United States.
That's Rome var Geese. We also heard from Bloomberg opinion columnists menschene Pai.
We should not worry very much about what Trump says. He keeps saying one thing and then doing another, so he's totally unpredictable, and I think most people do not eve at the moment in what he says. So the market is reacting.
Rationally well, particularly in an area like that. But I think we can believe that he would like to slap sixty percent tariffs on China.
Oh yes, I think so. Trump has this of the double sided feature to his policy. On the one hand, he's very tough on China in terms of trade, he wants to cut China off from the US market. At the same time, he does not care that much about China's military might, especially where Taiwan is concerned. There are inconsistencies in there, because in his heart, Trump really does not want to see China strong and powerful, and if you see Taiwan to China, then China will become even
more powerful than it is today. So at the end of the day, I think Trump will probably be tougher on China where Taiwan is concerned then what.
He see Bloomberg opinion columnists mention pay for more on this, We turn now to Bill Ferries, Bloomberg Senior Editor. So, Bill, we wanted to talk a little bit about how countries in Asia, and probably more with China, how they might be preparing for different outcomes from the US election. We sometimes generalize in the differences between the two on policy, saying that President Trump really focuses more on trade policy and President Biden more on industrial policy. But when looking
at the differences, how do you think China is seeing it? Well?
I don't think From China's perspective, they see it as a tough election for them either way, regardless of who wins in November, there's not a lot of upside for them. I mean, as you suggested at the outset, being tough on China is one of the very few things that has bipartisan support in the United States at this point. So you know, China sees that as they'll have to take their poison, whether it's a round of new tariffs that a President Trump would or says he would enact,
versus a lot of the trade restrictions. We're already seeing the Bided administration ramping up when it comes to high technology semiconductor chips and things like that, including support for Taiwan. So I think China knows there's still a lot that could happen in the next several months before the election, and that regardless of who wins, it's going to be a bumpy road for them for quite a while.
Yeah, because if you think about what you highlighted there, President Biden using the foreign direct Product rule on chip makers doing business in China, that's something that really in a sense is almost like the higher tariffs that President Trump would put on right.
You know, it's a real point of leverage that the US has with China. Listen, you know, we import a lot of goods from China. We found out during the pandemic that a lot of the just the basic medical goods that we products that we needed to deal with the COVID nineteen outbreak were coming in from China. There was a lot of reassessment of US vulnerabilities. The access to the highest technology gear to make the top line
chips is something that the US has influence over. It's something that China has spent tens of billions of dollars trying to recreate and so far hasn't been able to. So I think the US, really, regardless of who wins, is going to continue to use that leverage over a Beijing because it's one real strength that the US has at this point.
Let's talk a little bit about the different approach to policy on Taiwan. How do you see the differences there?
You know, it's fascinating because if you remember back to twenty sixteen, when President Trump was first elected, he actually took a call from the then Taiwanese president and that was seen as a huge breach of diplomatic protocol. It never happened again. But you know, I think the latest comments we have from the former President Trump in his interview with Bloomberg suggests real questions about whether the US
would come militarily to Taiwan's aid. I think President Trump always had a proclivity towards selling weapons to allies or anybody. He really talked about that a lot with countries like Saudi Arabia and Japan. I think he would be willing to continue and even ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan. But the idea of sending American troops into harm's way if China attacked, that's really been raised into question by
his latest comments. President Biden, on the other hand, kind of broke with decades of a diplomatic protocol in his own way when he said that, yes, the US would have to come to Taiwan's aid if attacked. So there is a big difference there. But I don't think anyone really knows how strongly Trump would stick to those doubts if he is elected and there was an attack.
So that really is a good example of the transactional versus the ideological differences. President Biden feels very strongly about protecting for reasons to go all the way back to the Second World War and perhaps even further whereas President Trump you know, wants to get paid in the sense of offering protections to Taiwan like an insurance policy, he believes that as she could pay. If you're a foreign leader in Asia, is it easier to deal with a transactional person or an ideological person?
It depends on, like which issues I think you're trying to get into. I think the Chinese, you know, a lot of foreign leaders will remember Trump as being transactional. They will also remember him as being quite unpredictable, and so you can try to reach a deal. You can think you have a deal, and then a week later you can find out that that deal no longer stands. So that's something I think people will have memories for.
On the other hand, if you're facing you know, someone like Joe Biden and he's if you don't like the policy, you're going to have a much harder time changing that policy because I think, you know, Biden has more of an ideological focus in terms of you know, when they make decisions, they're making them kind of long term, and they can be harder to undo.
Trump is sending a message essentially that you can pay to have policy changed. Now we know that there are obviously lots of nuances in that for countries that are looking at trade and for what might come from President Trump versus President Biden. Former President Trump has talked about using tariffs even against allies. Do allies in Asia fear that?
Yeah, I think allies in Asia are concerned. I think allies in Europe are concerned, and they all saw some of that in the previous administration. Yeah, I think he's going to be looking for companies to grant concessions to the US. He's going to be looking for companies to build factories in the United States. That was something that happened in his term. I think it's something that's happened
in Joe Biden's term as well. You know, you go back to twenty twenty one when Biden took office, there were a lot of expectations that he would ease some of these tariffs on China, and that never happened. He kept them in place and then move forward on other
high technology restrictions. So I think regardless of the country, whether you're a close ally or arrival of the United States, a President Trump would be very much looking to you for transactional diplomacy, looking for deals that, in his mind, would help the American consumer.
Let's talk about a couple of other areas. So if we think about President Trump, if he were to win with Vladimir Putin and Shijen Ping, who becomes the third wheel. I was thinking about it from the standpoint of would President Trump be a third wheel with those two because they've already declared this very strong relationship. But then I was thinking, it's more interesting if you throw the three in a hat and say, which are the two that get the closest.
Yeah.
I mean, you've heard former President Trump saying that if he is elected that he will help bring peace to the Ukraine conflict even before he takes office, and you've seen him draw a, you know, a very harsh line on China. You know, he I think he showed a lot of comfort in his first term and working with leaders like Putin, like she, like the Saudi Crown Prince.
He does seem to have a proclivity to work with these very kind of strong man type leaders who are able to make decisions and you know, very quickly in their countries because they don't have to deal with some of the mess of democracy. He took a harder line in many cases against a lot of US allies. So you know, whether he would try to strike deals with
Shi Jinping, I think is a very open question. I mean, he started off his administration really trying to work with Shi Jinping, but by the end, when the COVID outbreak happened, I think the tone changed very quickly. So between those three, He's certainly believes that he has influence with people like Putin and She, but to the degree he'll be able to exercise that would A lot needs to happen for that to take place.
A quick question on the dollar, Former President Trump seems to be pining for a weaker dollar, whereas President Biden doesn't normally wade into those waters.
Differences there, Yeah, I mean President Trump in his first term was really like someone who, for the first time in a generation, talked about the value of a weaker dollar. He really saw that as a boon to American exports and you know, a way to bolster the economy. Traditionally, of course, Treasury secretaries and White Houses have always pushed a strong dollar policy. So you know, when you talk to economists about the economic policies that President Trump would
bring about, they see it as very inflationary. He talks about, you know, extending his tax cuts, perhaps apps adding more tax cuts, but not as much talk on cutting spending side. So economists are looking at that as something that would have the FED perhaps having to keep rates higher. For Logger, that is essentially a stronger dollar policy if the rates remain high and the rest of the world is looking for cuts. So how he's going to square that circle is going to be a difficult one.
Bill, thanks very much for playing ball with us. Bill Ferries, Bloomberg Senior Editor. I'm Brian Curtis in Hong Kong along with Doug Krisner. You can catch us every weekday here for Bloomberg Daybreak Asia, beginning at eight am in Hong Kong and eight pm on Wall Street.
Tom thank you, Brian, and that does it for this edition of Bloomberg day Break Weekend. Join us again Monday morning at five am Wall Street time for the latest on markets overseas and the news you need to start your day. I'm Tom Busby. Stay with us top stories and global business headlines coming up right now,