[caption id=”attachment_145576″ align=”aligncenter” width=”1024″] FILE – In this Aug. 19, 2015 file photo, Republican presidential candidate businessman Donald Trump speaks in Derry, N.H. Trump sells himself as a bold empire builder, the kind of businessman who could force through big changes in Washington as president. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm, File)
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Asked for some specifics for how he’d deal with stagnating wages, Donald Trump rambled about China’s currency devaluation, creating jobs, and the minimum wage on MSNBC.
On Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski discussed wages with Trump — something that he characterized as a “dirty question” that required a “dirty answer.”
As Trump saw it, wages were an issue because of outsourcing and globalization that have changed the economic landscape. Instead of New York competing with Florida, states were competing with foreign countries over low taxes, low wages, and “all sorts of things,” Trump said.
China’s recent currency devaluation, Trump said, makes it difficult to compete.
“I’m gonna make us so competitive as a country,” he said, though he didn’t provide any details on how he could do that as president.
It’s also unclear that the Yuan devaluation harms United States’ competitiveness. A weakening Yuan makes the dollar stronger against it, which means dollars can buy more goods for less in China.
Nor was he illuminating about the minimum wage. “I wanna create jobs so that you don’t have to worry about the minimum wage,” Trump said. Again, no details were provided.
However, it doesn’t appear that he supports raising the minimum wage.
“I think having a low minimum wage is not a bad thing for this country,” Trump said.
Whether Trump thinks a low minimum wage allows more workers to find jobs or makes businesses stronger is unclear. The lack of detail for Trump’s policy positions is not new. So far, he’s only provided more information on his immigration reform plan.
