White House touts ‘enormous amount of momentum’ going into second half of 2018
In a big win for the Trump administration on Friday, the U.S. economy advanced at its fastest pace since 2014.
The Commerce Department announced on Friday that second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) advance by 4.1%, and first-quarter GDP was revised to 2.2% from 2%.
President Trump touted his economic success on Friday during a press conference at the White House, calling the number “very sustainable” driven by pro-growth policies.
The average annual growth rate has been 2.8% over the past four quarters and is now on track for 3.1% growth in 2018 – a level that has been met with criticism by some economists.
However, the Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Kevin Hassett said recent growth set the stage for a stronger economy in the second half of the year.
“We are looking at an enormous amount of momentum,” Hassett told FOX Business’ Neil Cavuto on “Cavuto: Coast-to-Coast.” “So I would guess the next time we write down our forecast for a year that it will go up by a couple of tenths.”
Hassett attributed the president’s hard line on trade as a contributor to higher growth.
“We’ve looked at… private data on inventories and we see that, for example, the Chinese increased their inventories of soybeans a lot, perhaps in anticipation of some kind of trade dispute,” he said.
Trump’s implementation of the tax overhaul and deregulation also boosted the number, he said.
“There’s a lot of reshoring of activity because the U.S. has become a really attractive tax climate again,” said Hassett.