President-elect Donald Trump rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday after vowing an economic boom to a cheering crowd of traders and business leaders.
“We’re with you all the way,” the incoming Republican president said in the NYSE building in lower Manhattan, where he was invited after becoming Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” for the second time.
Trump, who will take office Jan. 20 and has talked up his plans to make the U.S. as attractive as possible for corporations, was greeted with warmth and enthusiasm from the large crowd that had gathered on the floor.
Among the onlookers were Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon, Citigroup’s Jane Fraser, Verizon’s Hans Vestberg, Brian Cornell of Target, MasterCard’s Michael Miebach and Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman.
At one point, the room broke into a chant of “U-S-A.”
Trump’s entourage also included his pick for Health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his Treasury pick, Scott Bessent, his choice for Interior secretary, Doug Burgum, and his Commerce secretary pick, Howard Lutnick. Kelly Loeffler, Trump’s pick to lead the Small Business Administration and the wife of NYSE chairman Jeffrey Sprecher, also attended.
In brief remarks beforehand, Trump promised that his incoming administration would usher in “an economy the likes of which nobody’s ever seen before.”
“We’re going to give tremendous incentive like no other country has,” Trump told the moneyed crowd, including by cutting taxes “very substantially.”
Trump reiterated his plans to boost U.S. oil drilling, promising that doing so would lower inflation and bring down grocery prices.
That claim contrasted with what he told Time when asked if his administration would be a failure if grocery bills stay high.
“I don’t think so. Look, they got them up. I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up,” Trump told the magazine.
He also repeated at NYSE his vow to slash the corporate tax rate — which was already lowered to 21% during his first term in office — to 15%, but only for companies that choose to manufacture in the U.S.
“You pay 21% if you don’t build here. If you do, we’re going to try and get it to 15%, but you have to build your product, make your product in the USA,” Trump told CNBC’s Jim Cramer after the bell.
Trump also credited his election over Vice President Kamala Harris for the recent gains in the stock market, and noted that he is coming back into the White House with stronger ties to some of the country’s richest and most influential people.
″[Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg’s been over to see me, and I can tell you, [Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon [Musk] is another and [Amazon founder] Jeff Bezos is coming up next week, and I want to get ideas from them,” Trump told Cramer, who runs the members-only CNBC Investing Club.
Hedge-fund magnate Bessent, Trump’s pick to replace Janet Yellen as Treasury secretary, told Cramer the next administration will benefit both Wall Street and Main Street.
“I think we’re going to see under President Trump Wall Street can win and Main Street can win, just like we did in Trump 1.0. Everybody can do great,” Bessent said.
— CNBC’s Alex Harring and Yun Li contributed to this report.
Disclaimer
The information contained in South Florida Reporter is for general information purposes only.
The South Florida Reporter assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in the contents of the Service.
In no event shall the South Florida Reporter be liable for any special, direct, indirect, consequential, or incidental damages or any damages whatsoever, whether in an action of contract, negligence or other tort, arising out of or in connection with the use of the Service or the contents of the Service. The Company reserves the right to make additions, deletions, or modifications to the contents of the Service at any time without prior notice.
The Company does not warrant that the Service is free of viruses or other harmful components
