The prospect of Donald Trump winning the US presidency represents a global threat on a par with jihadist militancy destabilizing the world economy, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) said.
In the latest version of its Global Risk assessment, the British research group ranked victory for the US Republican front runner at 12 on an index where the current top threat is a Chinese economic “hard landing” rated 20.
Justifying the threat level, the EIU highlighted the tycoon’s alienation toward China as well as his comments on Muslim extremism, saying a proposal to stop Muslims from entering the US would be a “potent recruitment tool for jihadi groups.”
It also raised the specter of a trade war under a Trump presidency and said his policies “tend to be prone to constant revision.”
“He has been exceptionally hostile towards free trade, including notably NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement], and has repeatedly labelled China as a ‘currency manipulator,’” it said. “He has also taken an exceptionally right-wing stance on the Middle East and jiadhi terrorism, including, among other things, advocating the killing of families of terrorists and launching a land incursion into Syria to wipe out IS [Islamic State group].”
By comparison it gave a possible armed clash in the South China Sea an eight — the same as the threat posed by Britain leaving the EU — and ranked an emerging market debt crisis at 16.
A Trump victory, it said, would at least scupper the Trans-Pacific Partnership between the US and 11 other American and Asian states signed last month, while “his hostile attitude to free trade, and alienation of Mexico and China in particular, could escalate rapidly into a trade war.”
“There are risks to this forecast, especially in the event of a terrorist attack on US soil or a sudden economic downturn,” it added.
However, the EIU said it did not expect Trump to defeat his most likely Democratic opponent, former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, in an election, adding that the US Congress would likely block some of his more radical proposals if he won November’s election.
Rated at 12 alongside the prospect of a Trump presidency was the threat of the Islamic State, which the EIU said risked ending a five-year bull run on US and European stock markets if terrorist attacks escalated.
In related news, Fox News on Wednesday said it has canceled the Republican presidential debate scheduled for next week in Utah after Trump told the network he would not participate.
Trump, who has clashed with Fox News throughout his campaign, told the network in an interview on Wednesday he would not appear at the event, scheduled for Monday, because he thought the Republicans had “had enough debates.”
Ohio Governor John Kasich said afterward he would also skip the debate unless Trump changed his mind and decided to attend.
US Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the third remaining Republican candidate seeking the party’s nomination for the Nov. 8 presidential election, criticized Trump on Twitter, calling him #DuckingDonald and urging his supporters to tell Trump to attend.
“He’s scared to debate,” Cruz said in an interview on Fox News. “He’s afraid of being challenged.”
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