If Trump becomes the president of the United States, what will he do for the blockchain industry?

With just over a month to go, the countdown to the most important collective decision in living memory has begun. We present two presidential candidates for analysis, starting with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, convinced that his policies will have a direct or more likely indirect impact on the blockchain industry, followed by an article by Hillary Clinton and her final position statement (all opinions mentioned are considered as the author's pending judgment).

Never before have we seen a presidential candidate, or really any presidential candidate in a high office in the Western world, so badly smeared to such an extreme, with journalists bashing him and all abusing people for daring to have any opinion. We've seen people fired, Silicon Valley pioneers silenced, professors afraid to speak, writers witch-hunted. The long-established Republican establishment, for the first time in more than a century, we've been told to support a non-Republican presidential candidate. Trust the mainstream media, the only thing publicly said recently is that it has no clothes to wear, because it's as bad as it can be.

On the other hand, we dreamed of the remnants of the internet in the 90s, that terrible but brilliant corner where men walked alone, where anonymity, hackers, and internet culture were created, and it's amazing to think about how it would have been possible to further Trump without them.

So there was an urge to see who this man was and what he hoped to achieve, and here is a quote:

"I realized then that if you let people do whatever they want to you, you're going to be treated like a fool. I realized then, and one thing I'll never forget is: I don't want to be treated like a fool by anybody."

We have seen that Trump's daily curriculum is very effective during the primary campaign. He will respond to any attack with a higher level of escalation. He attacks opponents by name and denigrates them. Sometimes he goes too far, but he does not back down, but becomes more outspoken.

People left, instead interested in him, calling him Hitler without irony (to desensitize people to his atrocities) or, as Hillary Clinton put it, "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic - you name it." Yet it's hard to believe that almost 50% of Americans, including many African Americans and Latinos, who are typically racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic or overly sensitive Muslims, voted for Trump, especially in the most diverse country on earth, where people of all races, genders, sexual orientations, and religions mingle daily.

A better way to describe Trump and his supporters, therefore, is that they might be seen as a realistic, pragmatic worldview. Someone who sees the world as it is, not as it should be, and diagnoses the major problems, the systemic problems facing the United States and the West. He did not hesitate, for example, to exploit tax loopholes – “it’s just business” – saying “that makes me smart”. Similarly, he ruthlessly exploited bankruptcy laws and state subsidies, telling Hillary in a debate that she made the laws and she should change them.

From this unfiltered – or non-PC as his supporters call it – view, we can identify three main intellectual positions that attract followers and explain from the highest point of the world to the width of his hair. The main one is his economic plan, the second is political Islam, and the third, where the two are intertwined, is immigration. Trump's candidacy is more attractive in light of these three points. Everything else seems to be a juggling act of rhetoric and a media sideshow.

Trump's economic plan

Trump's economic plan includes three aspects: taxation, regulation and trade. In terms of taxation, he plans to set the lowest corporate income tax rate at 15%, the lowest level among developed countries, and the highest tax rate at 20%, making it the most competitive tax policy in the Western world.

If this plan works and pays off (with the benefits of Trump’s trade policies), the result would effectively directly increase revenues and profits by $4 trillion – the largest economic reform in history. When everyone feels a little richer, we can imagine that many people will take greater risks and investments in the blockchain space, both public and private, while getting more opportunities for their entrepreneurial ideas, creating more innovative activity.

Another major selling point for our industry was Trump’s stated position on regulation:

"Federal agencies list all the regulations they impose on American commerce and rank them from the most important health and safety regulations to the least important. The least important regulations will be prioritized for repeal."

If Trump is elected president, he will initiate regulatory reforms in various industries, aiming to abolish "irrelevant regulations" for fintech, including financial regulations that were established a century or two ago. This indicates that the final regulatory environment may be more favorable, and may also prompt the United States to catch up with some countries, such as the United Kingdom, in blockchain and fintech management.

It is important to reinforce the basic understanding of the blockchain industry in both parties in Washington. We have contacted both candidates and have not received a response, indicating that to a large extent, they agree on issues that directly affect the blockchain industry, including the fintech industry. Both candidates are willing to support blockchain technology, so this is not a campaign issue. However, perhaps Trump’s stance on deregulation of the financial industry will promote the development of this field faster, which is urgently needed for the fintech centers of California and New York in the United States, helping them to become the least regulated global financial centers among the seven global financial centers. An unfortunate indictment is that while California has the most blockchain talent, New York is the most in need of talent in this field.

Trump's China Policy

Trump’s most intriguing stance is reflected in a recent detailed paper on trade titled “Scoreboarding the Trump Economic Plan: Implications for Trade, Regulation, and Energy Policy,” or more simply: The Whole Chessboard. The plan details how some of the current trade deals are being abused to gain economic advantage at U.S. expense through loopholes and outright manipulation.

One example given is the value added tax, a sales tax used in many countries such as China, Germany, Mexico, etc., but not in the United States. The authors state:

Under World Trade Organization rules, any foreign company that produces goods domestically and exports them to the United States (or elsewhere) is reimbursed for the VAT it has paid. This turns the VAT into a hidden export subsidy.

At the same time, VAT is levied on all imported goods and domestic consumption goods, so U.S. exports to a VAT country are subject to VAT. This turns the VAT into an implicit tariff that U.S. exporters must pay, which exceeds and is higher than the U.S. corporate income tax."

Because of the abuse of this loophole (which Trump argues negotiators should have discovered during negotiations), the benefits of textbook free trade have not been discovered, and some have benefited at the expense of others and made extensive use of lobbying groups to secure their special interests.

The report argues persuasively that we are currently in a zero-sum trade war with the global economy, where countries cheat by deliberately devaluing their currencies to make exports cheaper at the expense of others. The aim of the economic plan is to achieve a non-zero-sum system where trade is based entirely on the efficient use of skills and real, non-artificial competitive advantages.

This is our industry relevance, especially in China, which has shown great interest in blockchain technology. Trump believes that trade protectionism in the Chinese market hinders the establishment of foreign-funded enterprises, favors domestic enterprises, and fails to strengthen intellectual property rights and control its currency.

China is currently debating whether it should deepen free market reforms, and the transition from an export-dependent economy to a consumer market requires more economic freedom, allowing greater innovation and invention to meet the needs of the local market. Therefore, Trump succeeded in achieving his goal, but there is no doubt that such negotiations will be very difficult.

If he succeeds, our industry is likely to benefit from better collaboration and integration, and the entrepreneurial spirit and ingenuity of Chinese peers put them ahead of their Western counterparts in some areas, especially in fintech payments, while of course the West also has the corresponding technology and talent.

Trump's immigration stance

While Trump’s comments on immigration are controversial (and the message he sends everyone may be rote), his views have a certain intellectual basis and can be used for reasonable public debate.

Trump believes that Mexico has not given us the best, which has resulted in the current immigrants being mostly illegal immigrants who have absolutely no skills and who are not easily adaptable to economic opportunities or society. On the other hand, as Silicon Valley has been complaining for years, it would also be a big nightmare for these immigrants to get a US work visa.

He wants to change that balance, or imbalance (depending on your perspective), by strictly enforcing immigration laws and calling it a day, or perhaps loosening the rules on the other side to allow easier travel and legal immigration for those with the necessary skills.

The rest is likely to be just a five-second whitewash of his own opinions during the 10 o'clock news segment.

Trump's policy toward ISIS

Since 1979, a new force of armed opposition has emerged around the world, political Islam, a religious supremacist belief that dreams of one day spreading from Arabia to Spain. It is surprising and unfortunate that what drew our attention 15 years ago now finds itself embodied in the extremist group ISIS.

It is highly doubtful that their leaders, who often carry out the most horrific medieval criminal enterprise, really believe in themselves as religious dictators, most of whom are highly educated in the West, and many of whom are former Iraqi soldiers who served under Saddam Hussein. However, some of their extremists have shown their religious will to the point of committing suicide and causing mass murder, because they have been taught to use them as an incredibly powerful tool and weapon.

We had to deal with the abuse of religion by the elites a long time ago, and we received enlightenment and came a long way to today's religiously tolerant society, but some people believe that the extreme left has formed an evil alliance with Islam and created a certain climate. Although the enlightenment told us everything, we cannot criticize it.

Beyond the economy, voters are more concerned, especially among the new generation of young people, about where terrorist attacks will occur than about how to address the all-too-pressing issue of how to resolve the social unrest that is fueled by cycles of mass murder on our streets.

Trump says he has a plan. We don't know what it is, because he says he doesn't want to alert his enemies. We can tell from the rhetoric of his supporters, however, that part of his plan may be an alliance with Russia (which has suffered its own religiously motivated mass murders), and perhaps with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, where they would be under greater political pressure.

Of course, this is a very complicated issue. We have been fighting in Iraq for more than a decade. The war has expanded to Yemen, Libya, and Syria. So there is no silver bullet, but the American generals and admirals who retired in 1988, who must care more about the lives of their soldiers, all support Trump.

If he can accomplish this difficult task and return us to the peace of the 90s, he may well be hailed as one of the greatest presidents ever, earning a place in history. Peaceful times will also return, increasing productivity levels and overall happiness, which, albeit quite indirectly, can only benefit the blockchain industry and fintech more generally.

Whether he can still see such a situation (if he has the chance) is unclear, but his supporters believe that it is mainly because he is not a politician and does not benefit from lobbyists.

Trump, US presidential candidate

There is no presidential candidate more difficult to judge than Donald Trump. A highly successful businessman who exploits any loophole to negotiate the best deals and sees things that others cannot. Likewise, a hot-headed man who uses rhetoric, violates constitutional boundaries, and has no experience in high office.

This lack of experience may well explain his constitutional gaffes, but will they translate into Obama-like promises to change America while sitting in office and accomplishing nothing, or worse? Can he bring law and order to America's cities? Can he negotiate new trade deals? Can he defeat ISIS? We don't know. We have no record to judge past achievements, so we only have his business record.

Lower taxes, less regulation, more open markets, and even a return to peace can only be good for our industry. But candidates are a judgmental gamble, and sometimes it's not just about money. So the author remains in suspense until the analysis of Hillary's political stance in the next series.