US economy

Kevin Hassett, Trump’s Top Economist, Will Depart


WASHINGTON — The chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Kevin A. Hassett, will depart “shortly,” President Trump said on Sunday, winnowing another advocate of traditional conservative positions on trade from the ranks of Mr. Trump’s advisers.

Mr. Hassett had not publicly telegraphed an intention to leave, but he said in an interview on Sunday night that he had discussed the move with the president last week and that it was not related to trade policy or any other contentious issue in the White House.

“It’s just normal, circle-of-life kind of things,” Mr. Hassett said. “It has nothing to do with any policy disagreements. The president and I are quite friendly.”

He said two years was historically the normal tenure for a chairman of the council, and “really an important part of the institution.”

“It really guarantees you’re getting fresh eyes,” he continued, “an eye on academic literature that doesn’t depend on White House politics.”

Mr. Trump announced Mr. Hassett’s pending departure on Twitter and promised to name a replacement soon.

Mr. Hassett was an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, when Mr. Trump chose him to serve as the administration’s top academic economist. He advised Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, during his presidential run. His research has long focused on the potential to expand economic growth — and middle-class earnings — by cutting corporate tax rates.

In the administration, he has been a champion of the corporate tax cuts that Mr. Trump signed into law in late 2017 and a stalwart optimist about the economic growth those tax cuts could spur for years to come. Mr. Hassett and his team projected significantly stronger growth for this year than their counterparts on Wall Street and at the Federal Reserve, a divide that stemmed in large part from the administration’s faith in the enduring power of tax cuts to stimulate investment and business activity.

While he has defended Mr. Trump’s trade policies on television and in other public appearances, Mr. Hassett has often been a voice inside the administration for a more traditionally conservative view of trade — one that pushes to open markets to trade and that often opposes tariffs, Mr. Trump’s favorite weapon in his disputes with China, Mexico and other trading partners.

More protectionist voices have been carrying the day with Mr. Trump in recent weeks. Mr. Hassett was excluded from a White House meeting last week at which Mr. Trump decided to impose escalating tariffs on Mexico in hopes of forcing the Mexican government to crack down on immigrants crossing America’s southwestern border.

In the past year, Mr. Hassett has focused significant effort on carrying out a provision of the tax cuts, so-called opportunity zones, that create tax incentives for investment in distressed parts of the country. Mr. Hassett helped draft and develop the opportunity-zone concept well before joining the administration, and he has used his position to champion the program and push internally for measures that would maximize the amount of investment it could drive to start-ups and other businesses in opportunity zones.

Mr. Hassett said on Sunday that he did not know what his next move would be. “It makes me sad to leave,” he said.





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