Trump Calls for 4% Growth, Pledges to Create 25M Jobs

Republican Donald Trump on Thursday called for a U.S. goal of 4 percent annual economic growth, saying his plans to cut taxes, eliminate regulations and revamp U.S. trade policy would create 25 million new jobs over a decade.

The presidential candidate said in a speech to a the Economic Club of New York, a business group, that his economic team projects his plans would enable the economy to grow at a rate of 3.5 percent.

"Everything that is broken today can be fixed, and every failure can be turned into a great success," said Trump, who will face Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 election.

U.S. gross domestic product expanded at a 1.1 percent annual rate in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said last month. The economy has struggled to regain momentum since output started slowing in the last six months of 2015.

Trump said on Thursday his plan includes a $4.4 trillion tax cut, although he said it would actually reduce government revenues by less under a "dynamic scoring" method that assumes lower taxes boost growth. Republicans, including Trump, favor this model, but critics say it hides the cost of tax cuts.

Trump said his team believes that his trade, energy and regulation policies and a new plan to cut nondefense spending by 1 percent each year would keep his plan from adding to U.S. government deficits. He said the plan would not touch programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Other groups have predicted more adverse effects from Trump's policies. Earlier this week, global economic research firm Oxford Economics projected the U.S. economy could be $1 trillion smaller than otherwise expected in 2021 if Trump becomes president. (Reporting by Emily Stephenson in New York, additional reporting by Steve Holland and Alana Wise in Washington; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)