Trumponomics

Trumponomics, a portmanteau of Donald Trump and economics refers to the economic policies promoted by President-elect of the United States Donald Trump during the Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016.
The four pillars of Trump's economic policy seem to be to reduce the federal income tax and capital gains tax, reduce government regulation notably when it comes to hydrocarbon exploration and coal mining (traditional Reaganite, 'productivist' notions), and, simultaneously, increase infrastructure spending across the board including military infrastructure, while somehow limiting or curtailing free trade and offshoring through higher tariffs, or, at least, dissociating trade in goods and services from the freedom of movement of foreign workers (some degree of progressivist 'centralization' and protectionism and the defense of native workers).
Origin of the term
The use of 'Trumponomics' was fairly rare until the summer of 2016 (Republican Convention). The term seems to have been coined in 2004 by US management theorist Jay Whitehead, at a time when Donald J. Trump wasn't openly considering a presidential run: "If you are like me and are looking to get ahead on the job, you will actually find yourself taking notes The Apprentice is about making money the old-fashioned way: by impressing The Boss."
The term was originally spelled "Trump-Onomics" and initially had strong corporate, managerial and PR undertones and thus wasn't directly associated with economic policy. The meaning evolved in the latter direction from 2015 onward.
Infrastructure spending
Cultural and ideological context
Distinct traditions within GOP
The economic policies that constitute Trumponomics seem to draw on the ideas of historically antagonistic traditions within the Republican Party: the laissez faire free-market economics advocated by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, the centrist Eisenhower tradition of the late 1950s which saw the development of the federally-funded Interstate Highway System, and the more 'populist' initially advocated by Theodore Roosevelt in the 1910s, thus seemingly repudiating in part some of the tenets of globalization and the neoliberal economic orthodoxy of the past 35 years.
Formative real estate experience?
Being a real estate developer, Donald Trump has always been close to some labor leaders from the construction industry - notably Ed Malloy, former president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, which sets him apart from other recent Republican candidates form the Post-Nixon era. As wealthy Wall Street donors deserted him for Hillary Clinton during the last months of the presidential campaign, Trump boasted he preferred the company of 'carpenters, roofers and masons' and other construction workers whose social circumstances he claimed to know intimately
'Broken' infrastructure fueling discontent
Some analysts have argued that, in the pre-Reagan era, "infrastructure was an apolitical, positively connoted, technocratic term shared by mainstream economists and policy makers including President Eisenhower, a praetorian Republican leader." From that perspective, the 1980 - 2016 Washington Consensus deprioritized federal, state and municipal spending on public infrastructure assets - notably large suspension bridges, interstate rail transportation and modern subways.
Some of the Reaganite economists and neoconservative thought leaders traditionally sceptical of the merits of large-scale infrastructure spending and initially doubtful of Trump's chances of winning the Republican Party presidential primaries, 2016 conceded that the lack of bipartisan Congressional agreement on a long-term funding plan for "creaking" infrastructure could "fuel voter rebellion against the political establishment"
'Fixing' America's ageing infrastructure
Infrastructure spending was therefore a signature theme of President-elect of the United States Donald Trump right from the start of his campaign: "After the Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia in May , Trump took to Twitter and declared himself 'the only one' who can fix infrastructure, promising to get it done cheaper than any politician 'I know how to build, pols only know how to talk!'."
That idea remained a core part of Trump's economic plank throughout the campaign and was later associated with two other key themes, offshoring and migration: "When I see the crumbling roads and bridges, or the dilapidated airports or the factories moving overseas to Mexico, or to other countries for that matter, I know these problems can all be fixed"
Perceived lack of specifics
But even Republican leaders favorable to the Trump candidacy such as U.S. Representative Bill Shuster criticized Trump's lack of specifics on that matter apart from his campaign promise to spend "hundreds of billions" on infrastructure across the board.
Trade policy
Renegotiating or rejecting existing agreements
Right from the start of his presidential bid, Donald Trump stressed the importance of reindustrialization to "bring back jobs" in America, notably in the Rust Belt. In that perspective, he criticized sometimes in very harsh term the North American Free Trade Agreement, which had always received strong bipartisan support in the House of Representatives and Senate: "dumping was a huge part of Mr. Trump's campaign. And reversing the large U.S. trade deficit (a combined $76-billion U.S. last year with Canada and Mexico) remains a key target of his team as it prepares to move into the White House in January. A memo, obtained recently by CNN, says Mr. Trump intends to propose changes to the treaty on issues such as currency manipulation, lumber, country-of-origin labelling for meat as well as environmental and safety standards"
Free trade vs. 'fair trade'
Ironically, Mr. Trump borrowed the notion of "fair trade" (generally associated with small, economically disadvantaged farmers from Latin America, Africa and South Asia) from the progressive ecological lexicon and gave it an altogether new meaning, insisting that modern trade policy had to be fair to traditional U.S. industry and the workers it employs: "Trump responded, 'Excuse me, every agreement has an end. Every agreement has to be fair. Every agreement has a defraud clause. We're being defrauded by all these countries.' The billionaire developer, whose stance is a sharp departure from the GOP pro-trade agenda, also indicated he was prepared to start a trade war with China Trump similarly threatened to impose duties on autos to force Ford Motor Co. to move manufacturing out of Mexico. 'Here's what's gonna happen, they're not going to build their plant there. They're going to build it in the United States,' he said."
Criticism
'Inconsistency'?
Donald Trump, the 'tariff-supporting free-trader' was criticized by both Establishment Republicans and moderate Democrats who stressed the perceived 'inconsistency' and argumentative weakness of Mr. Trump's professed position on trade policy: "Donald Trump said he would impose punishing tariffs on China. But he also said he was in favor of free trade free traders are opposed to tariffs of all kinds—and here's the really important part—even when those tariffs are designed to protect your country's industries, or your country's workers, or to punish other countries that are discriminating against your country's industries. It's like unilateral disarmament. Both sides give up the weapon. So, if Trump is actually saying that he wants to impose tariffs in order to protect U.S. jobs or to make it easier for U.S. companies to compete, then that's fine. But it means he's not in favor of free trade."
Unintended consequences
Summing up the neoliberal critique of Trumponomics, Alan Blinder, former Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System has argued that "Mr. Trump wants to renegotiate Nafta. If he doesn't get a 'better deal,' whatever that means, he threatens to abrogate the treaty. Legal experts disagree over whether the president has the unilateral power to do so, but that won't detain a man who's so used to being sued. However, some of his foreign-policy advisers might warn him about the perils of abrogating treaties. The U.S. is party to lots of them—and will no doubt want to negotiate more. Even without abrogating Nafta, U.S. trade laws offer the president ample tools with which to wreck trade with Mexico. Doing so would throw Mexico into a depression, thereby provoking more illegal border crossings. It would raise prices here and likely destroy more American jobs than it creates."

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