ING venter, at Bidens valgsejr foreløbig får mest betydning for indenrigsøkonomien. De første internationale reaktioner, at der er udsigt til en svækket dollar. ING venter, der vil gå nogen tid, inden der bliver klarhed over Bidens reaktion på Trumps handelskrig med Kina.
What does a Biden Presidency mean for Asia?
To be honest, in the short term, nothing substantial, besides some possible USD weakness, with most of the focus on the US domestic economy
ING focuses predominantly on what this means for the US economy, and that is because President-Elect Biden’s first priorities are likely to be domestic.
So he will focus on the pandemic, and then reversing some of the executive orders put in place by his predecessor on things like environmental control, bans on immigration from certain countries, rejoining the WHO and so on.
There is some good news in terms of growth as there is likelihood of a fiscal stimulus package, perhaps of the order of $1tr in 2021 – equivalent to about 5% of US GDP. And that will be encouraging for Asia’s exporters.
But this optimism is tempered by realism about the pandemic, with case numbers above 125,000 for the past three days and the daily death rate in excess of 1000, the possibility of a reversion back to European-style lockdowns and double-dip recession can’t be ruled out.
So while we may be keen to hear how Biden will approach relations with China (probably different in style rather than substance), trade (he is a free-trader, but he is also getting lots of revenue from tariffs that will be hard to give up), and technology (we don’t see too many differences), it may be a while before Asia becomes a pressing issue for the new President-elect.
In the meantime, the USD is looking soft, and Asian currencies are being supported by default, though we suspect that near term, the USD may be capped by its 1.2011 1 September peak.
