“Recession risks are higher than average,” Carmen Reinhart, Harvard professor and former chief economist at The World Bank, said in a recent episode of CNBC’s “The Bottom Line.”
Reinhart pointed out that the U.S. is now in an era of more volatile markets, financial instability and higher interest rates, brought on primarily, she said, by unpredictable market frameworks.
“We have policy uncertainty from all angles, whether it’s tariffs, … there’s concerns about President Trump’s attacks on the Federal Reserve,” said Reinhart. “Then there’s a lot of geopolitical uncertainty as well.”
Reinhart warned that with President Trump’s immigration policies and attempts to bring manufacturing back to the States, among other trends, the current U.S. shift away from globalization may further slow population growth in the country, and in turn economic growth, potentially leading to a recession.
“We shouldn’t be overly confident that a lot of the manufacturing that left will ever return,” Reinhart said. “More globalization, more global cooperation is certainly preferred for everyone than variations of a Cold War and a fragmented system.”
All Americans will be affected by these changes, noted Reinhart. To protect their bottom lines in the meantime, she advised investors and workers alike to emphasize hedging across operations and embrace medium-term to longer-term investment plans.
Watch the video to find out more about the fiscal and geopolitical policies currently putting the U.S. economy at risk, why people should care about the rising national debt, and what might be next for the country’s financial future.
