It’s still not as certain as Donald Trump’s second term, but his first administration is very responsive to business concerns with the way it operates, Germany’s top business executive Joe Kaeser told CNBC.
“If I personally, for my company at that time, have a problem that needs to be solved, the government is very receptive,” said the chairman of the supervisory board of Siemens Energy in an interview with CNBC’s Annette Weisbach on Thursday. Kaeser was CEO of Siemens during Trump’s first term in office.
Trump did “a lot of things that helped the economy” in his first four years in office, Kaeser said, adding that he believed the president-elect’s tax cuts at the time were positive.
Trump introduced a number of tax changes, including lower federal income tax brackets and a larger standard deduction as well as changes to child tax credits, estate and gift tax exemptions and deductions for pass-through businesses. One study conducted at the time showed that Trump’s tax cuts, implemented in 2017, had only a limited contribution to strong US growth in the following year.
Tax hikes are set to be at the top of the agenda for Trump as he takes a second term in office, along with other economic policy plans, such as steep tariffs on imports and deregulation. Analysts say it is difficult to determine how many proposals will be implemented, some of which could have global consequences and impact countries and businesses.
Speaking to CNBC from New York, Kaeser said that Trump has “a way of doing things” but that he can “actually predict what’s going to happen and what’s not going to happen, and that’s why it’s a really easy way to know what’s going to happen. for the company and the country.”
Despite the positive experience with Trump’s first administration, the former Siemens CEO said it is still unclear how his second term will fare.
The main difference now is that the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court and the White House are now all “looking in the same direction,” Kaeser said. “I’m sure the jury knows what that means.”
“I think the conclusion that can be drawn now for Germany and Europe, and also for other countries, is that you better be prepared, because usually people like him (Trump), who have a very different leadership style and reaction. for, let’s say different news, is that you can only deal with them from a position of strength, if you are not strong, it is better not to be in front of the institution,” he said.
Kaeser has also been critical of Trump in the past. In 2019, Trump verbally attacked four progressive Democratic congressmen and in posts on social media, prompting a crowd at a rally to chant “send them back” in reference to Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who came to the U.S. as a refugee from Somalia as a child.
Responding to news reports about the event, Kaeser said he considered that the most important political position in the world has become “the face of racism and exclusion.”
“I lived in the US for many years and experienced freedom, tolerance and openness like never before. It’s ‘America Great at work,'” he said in a post on social media, according to CNBC’s translation.
