Trump updates neocon recipe and focuses on Bitcoin

There are classic conservative recipes: the call for tax rate cuts for Corporate America and deregulation, starting with 'baby drill', promises to drill up to world 'dominance' in energy. But in the new version of Trumponomics, the economy according to Donald Trump, there are also and above all heterodox ingredients of conservative neo-populism, reinforced by the choice of JD Vance as deputy: the elimination of taxes on gratuities and pension benefits, all-out trade wars, forced exoduses of immigrants, a heavy hand on the Federal Reserve, sacrificed to a muscular presidency. In between, space for recent passions, from cryptocurrencies to TikTok. Almost non-existent in contrast are old mentions of fiscal austerity.

The Republican White House candidate's plans have at their heart familiar priorities - tariffs, relief and clampdowns on illegal immigrants. In a sea of eclecticism, which nonetheless makes the Trump 2024 a much more aggressive version on paper of the great improviser who rose to prominence in 2016, part of the outsider image heedless of accusations of fuelling chaos or contradictory ideas.

The newest positions are revealing of what the US media has dubbed Trump's 'malleability'. Cutting taxes on tips is popular in services, particularly in the restaurant industry where much of the income is generated by the generosity of customers. The federal minimum wage here stops at $2.13 per hour. However, his administration had proposed, if anything, to transfer tips to companies to use at their discretion, to the detriment of workers estimated at 5.8 billion a year. Not to mention the doubts about the effects of the exemption: a few raises now, at the risk of reduced or no pension provision in the future.

This is not the only surprise position: if in the past Trump had been a fierce detractor of TikTok, part of the escalation of national security tensions with China (home of parent company ByteDance), today he poses as its standard bearer. 'We will save TikTok,' he said. And he added without batting an eyelid: 'To everyone on TikTok I say vote for me'. There is no shortage, among critics, of suspicions of favours for Republican billionaire Jeff Yass, a major investor in the app. Again, here is Bitcoin, which he once dismissed as speculative and dangerous: he invites donations and purchases of electoral products in cryptocurrency and announces the 'defence of the right to mine Bitcoin'. What's more: at a conference on digital currency he pledged, as part of his vision of making America great again, to turn the country into a 'planetary crypto capital', a 'Bitcoin superpower'.

Cryptocurrency deregulation is actually dear to the new right, which is opposed to plans for more stable digital currencies controlled by central banks. And Vance's arrival at his side signals further flurries of populism: the deputy pick is known to have also advocated anathemas for the Republican business community, from minimum wage increases to anti-trust campaigns on big business. His social conservatism sees him promoting tax incentives for families to have children, criticised by conservative analysts as disincentives to work.