President Trump’s re-election is more unlikely than likely, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Wednesday.
Asked at an event hosted at the Economic Club of Chicago if Trump would be in office for another three and a half years or seven and a half, Dimon responded: “If I had to bet, I’d bet three and half.”
“But the Democrats have to come up with a reasonable candidate,” he added, rather than a left-wing one. He also called on Democrats to be “pro-free enterprise.”
During the question-and-answer session, Dimon also expressed support for the Republican tax reform plan. The provision lowering the corporate rate to 20 percent was essential for competitiveness, he said.
Dimon is the chairman of the Business Roundtable, the group of big-business CEOs that has lobbied in Washington for the tax package.
The corporate tax reform would lead to increased business investment, and accordingly more jobs and higher wages, Dimon said. Critics have said that companies will simply use the lower rates to pay out more to shareholders.
Dimon allowed that some money would have been paid out to shareholders if the reform had been put in place seven years ago, but that it also would have allowed companies to bring back money currently held overseas to avoid the existing 35 percent corporate tax rate and plow much of those funds into investment.
