Larry Fink: ‘The economy is weakening as we speak’

Washington CNN — Larry Fink, chief executive of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said Wednesday that the Trump administration’s barrage of policy changes is paralyzing American consumers and businesses — and that’s already hurting the economy. Fink said the uncertainty sowed by the Trump administration’s drastic changes is broad-based, unsettling companies and federal workers alike — and it remains to be seen whether that will worsen, he said. Fink also told CNN his firm’s landmark purchase of two ports at either end of the Panama Canal was not political in nature and emphasized on his belief that there isn’t enough attention to what he describes as America’s retirement “crisis.” Still ‘very bullish on America’ Nevertheless, Fink said the Trump administration’s policies “can be very productive for the United States” in the long run. “I look at that as a buying opportunity because I’m very bullish on America.” On the Panama Canal and America’s retirement crisis Fink also weighed in on his firm’s takeover of two Panama Canal ports, a key waterway that facilitates hundreds of billions of dollars in trade annually, and the implications of Americans not saving enough for retirement. “My conversation with the president was positive, it was optimistic… but if it was four months earlier, I would have been calling the prior administration.” Some of the canal operations being controlled by a Chinese firm had long angered Trump, and it was a topic he mentioned in his inaugural address in January, in which he said, “We’re taking it back.” BlackRock’s deal with a consortium of fellow investors aims to spend $22.8 billion to buy the ports of Balboa and Cristobal on either end of the canal from CK Hutchison, a Hong Kong company.