JPMorgan CEO credits Trump tax cuts for boosting economy

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Tuesday credited the tax-cut law signed by President Trump with helping to boost the U.S. economy, saying in a new interview that the Republican tax plan has “accelerated growth.”

Dimon told CNBC that the Republican tax plan signed by Trump last December created “competitive taxes” for the U.S. when compared to corporate tax rates in other countries around the world.

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“We needed competitive taxes. The way the American public should be thinking of it is: For 20 years, we’ve been increasingly uncompetitive, driving capital and brains overseas,” Dimon said.

Dimon pointed to lack of growth in America’s small businesses as evidence that previous fiscal policy had hindered economic growth, crediting Trump for undoing burdensome regulations.

“We’ve had less small business formation in America than in any other recovery,” Dimon said of economic growth since the Great Recession. “This [the tax plan] has accelerated the growth. It’s been 20 percent over 10 years; it should’ve been 40. The reason it wasn’t 40 is because of a lot of things that we did hurt ourselves.”

Dimon did warn that rising economic growth figures could easily be undone by losses incurred by the president’s growing trade war with economic adversaries including China and U.S. allies such as Canada and Mexico, which Dimon said, “could offset some of the benefits” of the tax law.

Trump has doubled down on his protectionist trade moves in recent weeks, coming to an agreement with the European Union’s Jean-Claude Juncker but provoking announcements of reciprocal tariffs from the governments of both Mexico and China.