Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has promised to scrap taxes for the US’ poorest and offer healthcare for all if elected president — paid for by renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) accords and picking a trade fight with China.
The billionaire businessman had promised to unveil yesterday what the national economy would look like under “President Trump.”
In an interview broadcast on CBS News’ 60 Minutes on Sunday, he presented an outline of that program, insisting he had a recipe for balancing the country’s books while cutting taxes across the board.
“There will be a large segment of our country that will have a zero rate,” Trump said of his tax plan.
“We’re talking about people in the low-income brackets that are supposed to be paying taxes — many of them don’t anyway,” he said.
The reality television star promised to do away with US President Barack Obama’s signature health reform program, and replace it with a rival plan to provide coverage for every American.
“They’re going to be taken care of. I would make a deal with existing hospitals to take care of people,” Trump said. “The government’s going to pay for it, but we’re going to save so much money on the other side.”
Pressed to explain the financing of his pledges, he said that the nation’s US$19 trillion federal debt would be erased by expanding the economy, “if the economy grows the way it should grow,” and by recovering manufacturing jobs lost overseas.
Trump displayed little patience for the NAFTA, which he vowed to do away with.
“We will either renegotiate it or we will break it, because, you know, every agreement has an end,” he said.
He also vowed to bring China to heel for its recent devaluation of the yuan, which he said has bolstered Beijing’s export markets and hurt the US’ trade balance.
“They will respect me. They won’t be doing it,” Trump said. “If they don’t come to the table, they’re going to have a tax when they put their products into this country. And they’re going to behave.”
Trump laid out an equally mercurial approach to foreign policy, when asked how he would combat the Islamic State group and deal with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“Why aren’t we letting ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] go and fight Assad and then we pick up the remnants? Why are we doing this? We’re fighting ISIS and Assad has to be saying to himself: ‘They are the nicest or dumbest people that I’ve ever imagined,’” Trump said.
He added that another approach might be to simply let Moscow destroy the radical group.
“Russia wants to get rid of ISIS. We want to get rid of ISIS. Maybe let Russia do it. Let them get rid of ISIS,” Trump told the US news program. “What the hell do we care?”
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
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