Relax – the economy can't actually save Trump in 2020

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy The move was already afoot to declare President Donald Trump the economic wizard in office that his backers, if not his bankers, thought he was in the private sector — even before today’s report showing the US unemployment rate at a 50-year low of 3.6 per cent. Similarly, for all of Trump’s talk of an investment-led growth boom, growth in GDP has also been little better than in 2014 or most of 2015 — before a hiccup caused by the flurry of worries about China’s debt load cut into US exports. Yes, the unemployment rate is very low — but the 1.1-percentage-point drop since Trump took office 27 months ago is less than the drop in 2013 alone and the same as in 2014. More likely, 2020 will feature Americans breaking into their now-familiar tribes, with the Blue team allocating credit for unemployment — which Barclays thinks may reach 3 per cent by then — to trends established under former President Barack Obama, and the Red team crediting Trump.