“It’s highly unusual, and I don’t think we ever have done it where we’ve had a single politician be the center of our risk items,” said a member of the Economist Intelligence Unit on Donald Trump. | AP Photo The Economist rates Trump presidency among its top 10 global risks

A Donald Trump presidency poses a top-10 risk event that could disrupt the world economy, lead to political chaos in the U.S. and heighten security risks for the United States, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Electing Trump could also start a trade war, hurt trade with Mexico and be a godsend to terrorist recruiters in the Middle East, according to the latest EIU forecasts.


The well-respected global economic and geopolitical analysis firm put a possible Trump presidency in its top 10 global risks this month, released Wednesday. Other risks include a sharp slowdown in the Chinese economy, a fracture of the Eurozone, and Britain's possible departure from the European Union.

Trump’s controversial remarks on Muslims would be a gift to “potential recruiters who have long been trying to paint the U.S. as an anti-Muslim country. His rhetoric will certainly help that recruiting effort,” said Robert Powell, global risk briefing manager at EIU.

Until Trump, the firm had never rated a pending election of a candidate to be a geopolitical risk to the U.S. and the world. The firm has no plans to include Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz or John Kasich on future risk lists.

“It’s highly unusual, and I don’t think we ever have done it where we’ve had a single politician be the center of our risk items,” Powell said in an interview, but noted that the firm has once included the transition at the top of the Chinese Communist Party as a top-ten risk as well.

“Innate hostility within the Republican hierarchy towards Mr. Trump, combined with the inevitable virulent Democratic opposition, will see many of his more radical policies blocked in Congress,” wrote EIU. But “such internal bickering will also undermine the coherence of domestic and foreign policymaking.”

And there are also serious risks to the global economy if Trump is elected, warned EIU, a sister company to The Economist.

“The prospects for a trade war are quite high,” said Powell. “Why is a guy who has many of his goods made in China wanting to start a trade war in China?”

One difficulty in assessing Trump’s policy positions is that “he does tend to shift his opinions like the weather,” Powell said.

Powell also remarked upon Trump's calls for a more aggressive campaign against the Islamic State terrorist group, also known as ISIL or ISIS.

“One of [Trump’s] extreme positions has been to invade Syria to wipe out ISIS,” he said, citing estimates finding that a year-long excursion in Syria of 20,000-30,000 U.S. troops could cost $25 billion.

Trump has vowed to seize Syria's oil fields and refineries, which help keep ISIS afloat, and then sell the oil to pay for a U.S. military campaign. But Powell said that at current oil prices, if the U.S. actually stole the oil, it would only net about $500 million, at most.

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