American voters have chosen Donald Trump as the next president of the United States, handing him a commanding victory against Vice President Kamala Harris.
A call in the state of Wisconsin in favor of Trump by the Associated Press on Wednesday morning put him over the top, with Trump now set to have the distinction of being the 45th and the 47th US president.“This was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time,” he told supporters early Wednesday morning as he neared victory. “And now it’s going to reach a new level of importance.”
The former president was powered by strong support among men and an intense voter focus on inflation that has been evident in nearly every poll in the years since consumer inflation peaked at a 9.1% annual rate in June 2022.
“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” Trump also said on Wednesday, noting his win in the electoral college and his lead, as of Wednesday morning, in the popular vote.
Inflation has moderated in recent years, but it has nonetheless remained front and center in voters’ minds, which Trump proved able to use to win Joe Biden voters back to his side and bring new voters who sat out previous contests to the polls.
“We are going to turn our country around,” he promised voters in his final rally late Monday night in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
“I will end inflation very quickly.” It was a refrain he repeated at nearly every campaign stop, including on Wednesday morning, where his podium read, “Trump will fix it.”Trump’s plans for inflation Trump’s main campaign promises — a new wave of tariffs and a “mass deportation” of undocumented immigrants — could put new upward pressure on prices, many economists say.
A note from Capital Economics late Tuesday night crystallized some of the macroeconomic worries. The authors wrote that they expected Trump to push forward on his proposed immigration curbs and tariffs and, as a result, “we are minded to reduce our GDP growth forecast … by roughly 1% and add 1% to our inflation forecast over the same period.”
What are tariffs, and how do they affect you? Trump has remained undeterred on the campaign trail, pledging to impose new blanket tariffs on Mexico during a stop in North Carolina on the final day of campaigning.
“You’re the first ones I’ve told it to,” Trump told a crowd in Raleigh. “Congratulations, North Carolina.” Trump has also promised things like 60% tariffs on China and 20% tariffs on America’s other trading partners in addition to his promises of duties on Mexico.
An analysis from Goldman Sachs projected that a Trump win would negatively impact US GDP growth by 50 basis points, in large part because of a “hit to growth from tariffs.”
While economists may be skeptical, voters clearly weren’t in the aggregate, as Trump carried the Tar Heel State by a healthy margin and found new levels of support above his previous runs for the presidency in 2016 and 2020.
Another key issue: Taxes
Trump will also immediately be at the center of a fierce tax debate set to consume Washington in 2025 over whether to extend tax cuts that Trump himself signed into law in 2017.
What Trump has promised is a complete extension of the cuts for individuals of all income levels, alongside a dizzying array of additional promises from no taxes on tips and overtime to lowering taxes for big business.
All told, a complete Trump tax agenda comes with a price tag in the neighborhood of $9 trillion over the coming decade, according to the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB). And he has laid out a few concrete ways to pay for it all.
But how far he will be able to go there is largely dependent on Congress, where Republicans have taken control of the Senate but control of the US House is still unclear.Trump is also set to have a guiding hand on a wide range of issues from the selection of the next Federal Reserve Chairman (perhaps the only certainty there is that Jerome Powell will not be nominated to a third term) to energy (where Trump may attempt to roll back green energy subsidies.Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.Every Friday,
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