Trump says people have 'no choice' but to vote for him to save stock market

Polls show the economy could be the US president's biggest political asset

Donald Trump said even Americans who hate him “have no choice” but to vote for him in the next US election because otherwise the stock market will collapse.

He doubled down on his economic argument for re-election on Thursday night amid increasing concerns about a recession. Markets are already wobbling over the escalating trade and currency war with China.

Mr Trump flew to a battleground state to defend policies that are rattling businesses and investors and to insist he will continue the country’s decade-long economic expansion into a second term.

“You have the best unemployment, you have the most successful state in the history of your state and the history of our country,” the US president told a campaign rally in Manchester, New Hampshire.

“And then you’re going to vote for somebody else? Oh great. ‘Let’s vote for Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren. We have the best numbers we’ve ever had — let’s vote for somebody else.’ ”

Even as he derided Democratic presidential candidate Ms Warren with a racial slur, Mr Trump acknowledged the deep antipathy many voters have for him and argued they should put this aside for their own economic well-being.

“You have no choice but to vote for me because your 401(k), everything is going to be down the tubes,” he told the crowd. “Whether you love me or hate me, you’ve got to vote for me.”

In resting his case for a second term on the health of the economy, Mr Trump underscored the political consequences of the economic turmoil that has played out in recent days.

In private, he has expressed his own anxiety about the economy taking a dive, knowing that his electoral fortunes are likely tied to it, even as he vents frustration that his opponents are exaggerating the troubles.

American stock markets fell about 3 per cent on Wednesday amid indications that the global economy could slow before shares rebounded slightly on Thursday.

Mr Trump lashed out at those questioning his confrontation with China, including the conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal.

The WSJ‘s editorials “demonstrate that they understand nothing about trade or business,” he said. “Nothing. They advocate only economic surrender. They actually say go to China, take off the tariffs, make a deal. I lose all the cards, we take off the tariffs. We don’t have any cards.”

Polls show economic stewardship is perhaps Mr Trump’s biggest political asset.

He boasted: “Hey, you got low interest rates, the lowest ever.”

He made no mention of his regular attacks on the Federal Reserve for keeping interest rates too high.

New Hampshire, which Mr Trump narrowly lost in 2016, is a state where the economic argument may not resonate as strongly as in other places.

Its unemployment rate had already fallen to 2.8 per cent under Barack Obama and has since ticked down to 2.5 per cent.

Mr Trump’s speech was marked by repeated inconsistencies. The same president who last year said trade wars were “easy to win” told his supporters that “I never said China was going to be easy”.

The same president who compared America’s intelligence agencies to “Nazi Germany” when he took office complained that Democrats “use the term Nazi” to attack their opponents.

At one point, when a protester disrupted the speech and was escorted out of the arena, Mr Trump belittled the man’s physical appearance. “That guy has a serious weight problem,” he said. “Go home, start exercising!”

The New York Times