Donald Trump Forecasts ‘Greatest Economic Year In History’ Via Twitter
President Donald Trump continued to tout the manner in which the American economy has performed under his watch via Twitter on Saturday, while predicting record growth in 2021. In the tweet, the president opined that the U.S. had outperformed every other nation in the world in its recovery amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Our ECONOMY is now surging back faster, better, bigger and stronger than any nation on earth,” Trump tweeted. “We just had the best quarter of ECONOMIC GROWTH EVER recorded – a 33.1% increase, and next year will be the GREATEST ECONOMIC YEAR in the history of our Country!”
The increase referred to by the president in the tweet represents the positive swing in gross domestic product (GDP) in the U.S. for the third quarter, according to an advance estimate from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).
The BEA announced its early projection for the period earlier this week, but was careful to note that the estimate was based on “source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision” and that a more complete estimate would be released late next month.
Per the release, the GDP increase was a reflection of efforts to reopen businesses and resume activities that had been restricted due to the coronavirus crisis.
However, the projected GDP gains come on the heels of a second quarter in which the American economy had shrunk by more than 30 percent. Moreover, recent projections from the International Money Fund (IMF) have been far less bullish on what can reasonably be expected to occur in 2021.
According to IMF estimates announced earlier this month, the U.S. economy will have shrunk 4.3 percent by the end of 2020, and while the organization is expecting a continued bounce-back in the year to come, it also anticipates that a full recovery is far from imminent.
“We do not expect there to be a return back to 2019 levels until well into 2021 and maybe 2022,” said Gita Gopinath, Chief Economist and Director of the IMF’s Research Department. “This is a partial recovery we are seeing as of now, and we expect the path going forward to take some time.”
Gopinath noted that America’s initial recuperation had come about sooner than expected, crediting government stimulus programs for helping to kickstart the turnaround.
As shared recently by The Inquisitr, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has expressed doubt about another round of stimulus relief coming any time soon, even as the Trump White House and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi have bridged at least part of the gap in their negotiations on an another relief package.
