Siemens CEO Qiao Kaisa delivered a speech at the Siemens Annual Shareholders Meeting in Munich, Germany on February 3, 2021.
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What a second term for Donald Trump as president will look like remains uncertain, but his first administration had a set approach to business issues, German business executive Joe Kaeser told CNBC Highly responsive.
The chairman of the supervisory board of Siemens Energy said in an interview with CNBC reporter Annette Weisbach on Thursday: “If I personally and the company at the time have a problem that needs to be solved, his government will be very happy to accept it.” He served as CEO of Siemens during President-elect Trump’s first term.
Kaisa said Trump did “a lot of things that were good for the economy” in his first four years in office, noting that he believed the president-elect’s tax cuts at the time were positive.
Trump has introduced a series of tax reforms, including lowering federal income tax brackets and increasing the standard deduction, as well as changes to the child tax credit, estate and gift tax exemptions, and pass-through business deductions. But a study at the time showed that Trump’s tax cuts implemented in 2017 had limited contribution to strong U.S. growth the following year.
When Trump takes office for a second time, taxes will again be at the top of his agenda, along with other economic policy initiatives such as high import tariffs and deregulation. Analysts said that while it was difficult to determine how many of his recommendations would be implemented, some could have global ramifications and impact countries and businesses.
Kaisa told CNBC in New York that Trump has “his way of doing things,” but that he “can actually pretty much predict what’s going to happen and what’s not going to happen, so it’s actually a relatively simple way to understand What” needs to be done for the sake of the company and the country. “
Despite the positive experience of Trump’s first administration, the former Siemens CEO said it’s unclear how a second term will play out.
A key difference now, he explained, is that the Senate, House, Supreme Court and White House are now “looking in the same direction.” “I believe the jury is still out on what that means.”
“I think the conclusion we can draw today about Germany and Europe and any other country is that you better be prepared because usually someone like him (Trump) has a very unique style of leadership and reaction that makes us The different message is that you can only deal with those people from a position of strength, if you are weak you are better off not standing in front of such an institution,” he added.