BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said during a panel discussion Tuesday at the New Economic Forum in Singapore that the status of the U.S. dollar as the strongest currency in the world is soon coming to an end.
And the culprit, he said, is the ballooning federal deficit and rising interest rates that are going to sap the strength of the dollar under the strain of the monstrous debt burden. Meanwhile, creditors who might normally be looking to buy U.S. Treasury bonds are disappearing because of the ongoing trade war.
“The problem is we are living with a deficit that is very large. We are fighting with our creditors right now worldwide,” he said. “Generally, when you fight with your banker, it’s not a good outcome. I wouldn’t recommend you fight with your lenders, and we’re fighting with our lenders. Forty percent of the U.S. deficit is funded by external factors. No other country has that.”
Fink said our debt is going to continue to mount because we’ll be paying so much interest, and the markets will inevitably take a hit.
“We are going to have more and more debt because of the deficits, and because of the deficits, the investors are going to demand a bigger premium,” he said. “We have greater risk for higher rates and will not allow the equity markets to flourish. There are some great needs in society right now, and a $1.3 trillion deficit as the economy slows down is a real problem.”
Blackrock is the world’s largest asset manager with $6.4 trillion in assets, and it doesn’t sound like Fink thinks things will get turned around in time regarding China.
Per a recent interview with CNBC:
“I was in China a few weeks ago, and I do believe if the path remains the same in the next few weeks, we’re going to have a full-fledged trade war,” the CEO of the largest asset manager in the world said at the DealBook conference in New York. “Let’s hope I’m wrong.”
“China, a very strong, very proud nation, I think they’re going to stand firm. Privately, I think they will negotiate, but I don’t think that has worked for them at the moment,” Fink said. “We had similar problems in our negotiations with Mexico and Canada. That was stalled and stalled and stalled until we came to a resolution.”
U.S. President Donald Trump and China President Xi Jinping are scheduled to to meet at the Nov. 30-Dec. 1 G-20 summit in Buenos Aires. Trump of course said he had a “very good conversation” with Xi in a recent tweet, so we’ll have to wait and see how things turn out at the end of the month.
Just had a long and very good conversation with President Xi Jinping of China. We talked about many subjects, with a heavy emphasis on Trade. Those discussions are moving along nicely with meetings being scheduled at the G-20 in Argentina. Also had good discussion on North Korea!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 1, 2018