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Donald Trump

NEW YORK. – Billionaire investor Warren Buffett defended the stock market’s strength and raised doubts about President-elect Donald Trump’s trade agenda in a CNN interview broadcast yesterday, just days after the US elec- tion.Buffett, a vocal critic of Trump, endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton during her failed bid for the White House. Her husband, former president Bill Clinton, implemented the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994.

“The stock market will be higher 10, 20, 30 years from now, and it would have been with Hillary, and it . . .will be with Trump,” said Buffett, who is chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N).

Asked if he felt optimistic about the United States, Buffett added: “100 percent. . . . The market system works. It doesn’t work for everybody. It works in aggregate.”

Buffett played down the chances that Trump would carry out a campaign promise to scrap NAFTA, the US trade deal with Canada and Mexico.

“He has to go through the House and the Senate,” Buffett said. “He has to get support on it.

“There are a lot of things said in campaigns that don’t happen after the election.”

Buffett said Trump’s proposal to impose 35 percent tariffs on goods from China and Mexico was a bad idea, “but I’m not going to say it will cause a recession.”

Trade helps society as a whole, Buffett said, but its benefits are “very dif- fuse”.

“I may buy the socks I have, the underwear I have, a few cents cheaper because of the comparative advantage of some other country in producing it,” he said. “But . . . every time I go to Walmart and buy them, I don’t say, ‘Thank God for free trade.’”

Meanwhile, the US President-elect yesterday praised demonstrators for being passionate about their country, just hours after he accused them of being “professional protesters” incited by the media.

“Love the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country. We will all come together and be proud!” Trump tweeted early yesterday.

On Thursday night, the president-elect had posted: “Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!”

Mostly peaceful and orderly protests took place in at least eight cities following the Republican businessman’s defeat of Clinton in Tuesday’s election. Demonstrators have voiced concern Trump would harm Americans’ civil rights.

Trump’s critics worry that his often-inflammatory campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims, women and others – combined with support from the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists – could spark a wave of intolerance against minorities.

East Coast protests took place on Thursday in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York, while on the West Coast, demonstrators rallied in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland in California, and Portland, Oregon.

After Clinton conceded defeat early on Wednesday, Trump took a far more conciliatory tone than he had often displayed during his campaign, promising to be a president for all Americans. His campaign rejected a Klan newspaper endorsement days before the election, saying Trump “denounces hate in any form”.

But civil rights groups and police reported an uptick in attacks on minority groups, some by people claiming to support Trump.

More anti-Trump demonstrations were planned for the weekend. Trump takes office on January 20, succeeding President Barack Obama. – Reuters.