Trump supports low interest rates to manage US natl debt

NEW YORK

Donald Trump supports low interest rates in order to manage the U.S. national debt which stands above $19 trillion, he said Thursday.

"We're paying a very low interest rate. What happens if that interest rate goes up two, three, four points?. “We don't have a country," the apparent Republican presidential nominee said during an telephone interview with the CNBC television financial news channel.

Calling himself "the king of debt," Trump stressed that the U.S. should refinance longer-term debt. "We’re talking about something very, very fragile. We owe so much money."

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates last December for the first time in almost a decade. The Fed was anticipated to make four more hikes this year but those projections were lowered to two after recent dovish statements by chairwoman Janet Yellen.

Trump said he would most likely replace Yellen when her term expires in 2018, if he were elected, although he agrees with keeping interest rates low.

"She’s always been a low-interest-rate person, and let’s be honest, I’m a low-interest-rate person," he said. "I think she's been doing her job. She's a very capable person. People I know have a high regard for her. But she's not a Republican."

Something else Trump would replace would be President Barack Obama’s signature health care legislation. He said he would repeal or replace the "total disaster" that is the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. "The country cannot afford it. People cannot afford it. It's good for almost no one," he said.

The billionaire real estate investor would renegotiate U.S. trade agreements with other countries and said China changing its currency has had a negative impact on American trade.

"I'm not blaming China. I wish our people would think the same way. I blame our leadership. It's incompetent," he said, He added that he would lower corporate taxes, currently at 39 percent, but he did not provide specifics. The global average is 25 percent.

Trump said U.S. regulators are running the country's banks and he vowed to get rid of many of the regulations that he believes are damaging American companies.

Among those would be a change to or elimination of the Dodd-Frank Act -- signed by President Barack Obama in 2010 to tighten regulations in an effort to avoid a repeat of the financial downturn that began 2008.

The country’s transportation infrastructure needs repair – an initiative Trump said he supports but the current Republican-led Congress is against it.

"The beautiful thing about infrastructure is it puts people to work,” he said of the undertaking. “But it's got to be done properly, on time and on budget.”

Trump added that there is 40 percent chance that he would pick a vice president from the former Republican presidential candidates who have all dropped out of the race, but he said he prefers someone experienced with a legislative background.