Here we go …
Republican president candidate Donald Trump didn’t waste a moment Monday in blaming US exposure to China for the stock market rout.
“I’ve been talking about China for years. Because China’s going bad it’s going to bring us down, too, because we’re so heavily coupled with China,” said real-estate mogul Trump on Fox News. “I’m the one that says you better start un-coupling from China because China’s got problems.”
Trump (who’s not exactly Elizabeth Warren when it comes to economic policy) also fingered hedge funds for the debacle and said that if he were elected president in 2016 he would raise taxes on the wealthy and specifically target those working in high-stakes finance.
Not to be left out on the China chatter, former Hewlett-Packard Co chief executive Carly Fiorina said she had expected a market correction for “some time.”
“The market has been way too high, given the fundamentals. Our economy is not particularly strong — 2% growth is very lackluster. China’s economy has been slowing down for some time. Europe’s economy is in trouble,” she said.
But Fiorina avoided bashing China and mostly blamed the Federal Reserve.
“I think the stock market has hit record highs over and over again because the Federal Reserve has ensured, through its easy-money policy, that the stock market is the only place you can earn a return,” she said. “I think this is warranted honestly.”
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, also a Republican candidate, had a boilerplate reaction to the crash. He told Fox News the government under President Barack Obama (just Obama?) had borrowed too much and with China a major buyer of US debt a market correction in the Asian superpower is “going to have an even greater effect because this president doesn’t know how to say no to spending.”
“What you need to do in the Oval Office is rein this government in. Stop running up so much debt,” he said.
The Republican candidates clearly don’t want to be caught eating dim sum with their morning coffee.
Perceptions that China’s government was failing to respond with aggressive measures following an 11% drop in Chinese equities last week triggered a global free fall in stocks and selloffs in oil and commodities. The DJIA plunged more than 1,000 points, or about 6% shortly after Monday’s open.