The U.S. economy will fall short of the Trump administration's goal of 3 percent growth this year and will only achieve that when its regulatory, tax, trade and energy policies are fully in place, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Tuesday.
The GDP target "is certainly not achievable this year," Ross told Reuters in an interview. "The Congress has been slow-walking everything. We don't even have half the people in place."
In fact, the consensus does not see anything more than 2.3% GDP growth for the US economy out to 2020...
But optimism remains (as seen above in stocks), as Ross said it ultimately could be achieved in the year after all of Republican President Donald Trump's business-friendly policies are implemented. He noted that delays were possible if the push for tax cuts was slowed down in Congress.
Finally, Reuters reports that when asked if he thought that the dollar's strength was a problem for achieving U.S. trade goals Ross said:
"I don’t think it is so much that the dollar is too strong as that the other currencies are too weak."
And whether it was Comey alone or some hangover from Ross, the dollar index has fallen since...