George Soros says Trump will fail and market's dream will end

[January 20, 2017]  By Jennifer Ablan and Trevor Hunnicutt

(Reuters) - The billionaire investor George Soros said on Thursday that global markets will falter given the uncertainty of incoming U.S. President Donald Trump's policies.

"Right now uncertainty is at the peak," Soros told Bloomberg News at his annual media dinner held at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "I don't think the markets are going to do very well."

Stocks in the United States surged after Trump's Nov. 8 election victory. Trump takes office on Friday.

"Markets see Trump dismantling regulations and reducing taxes, and that has been the dream," said Soros. "The dream has come true."

But Trump has called for border taxes and withdrawing from his predecessor's Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, among other policies that have unclear ramifications for U.S. growth, Soros said.

"It's impossible to predict exactly how Trump is going to act," he said.

Soros, who founded Soros Fund Management LLC and now is chairman of the New York-based firm, was a large contributor to the Super PAC fund-raising group backing Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and had donated to other groups supporting Democrats.

Overall, Soros said about the president-elect: "I personally am convinced that he is going to fail. Not because of people like me who would like him to fail. But because his ideas that guide him are inherently self-contradictory and the contradictions are actually already embodied by his advisers ... and his cabinet."

Turning to the United Kingdom, Soros said it is unlikely that Prime Minister Theresa May will "remain in power" given divisions within her government.

Business magnate George Soros arrives to speak at the Open Russia Club in London, Britain June 20, 2016. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor/File Photo

May on Tuesday laid out plans for Britain to negotiate its exit from the European Union. Soros said that process will be long and that "a bitter divorce" will hurt both sides.

Soros famously made huge profits in 1992 betting against the British pound as it crashed below the preset level and had to be withdrawn from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

China has an interest in European unity because of the bloc's importance as an export market, Soros said.

He said President Xi Jinping, who on Tuesday made a case for China's leadership in Davos, can steer his country to either a more open society or a more closed society, while nudging it to a more sustainable economic growth model.

"Trump will do more to make China acceptable as a leading member of the international community than the Chinese could do by themselves," Soros said.

(Reporting by Jennifer Ablan and Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Alan Crosby)

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