Potential Harris administration expected to flex pro-business muscle

We are two weeks from election day — good morning and welcome to US Election Countdown. Today let’s explore:

• Who would run Kamala Harris’s economy?

• The IMF’s tariff warning

• The electoral importance of Omaha, Nebraska

Kamala Harris wants to overhaul the team that runs the US economy. But there’s a lot that needs to happen first.

With a razor-thin polling margin, she is not expected to make any big decisions about potential economic appointments before election day. Donald Trump has all but erased the vice-president’s lead in swing state polls.

Yet Harris has a big fundraising advantage. Her campaign raised close to $1bn in its first three months — more than Trump’s entire haul since January 2023 — and Democrats hope Harris’s war chest can put her over the edge.

If she is victorious, she’ll have to make quick decisions. Harris is set to name an economic team that embodies the centrist, moderate approach to policy that she has touted in her stump speeches.

While Harris would bring less upheaval to the US economy than another Trump administration, she has also tried to distinguish her plans from Joe Biden’s, namely with less ideology and more pragmatism. She’s expected to be more willing to engage with business executives and put in government fewer officials associated with the progressive left compared with her boss [free to read].

The most consequential economic appointment would be the next Treasury secretary, especially since Janet Yellen indicated last month that she would likely step down. Her natural successor is her deputy Wally Adeyemo, who has forged close ties with the vice-president.

Another contender is Lael Brainard, a former Federal Reserve official who heads Biden’s National Economic Council. But, Harris might be eyeing Brainard for Fed chair when Jay Powell’s term ends in 2026. Two other options are commerce secretary Gina Raimondo and White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, both of whom have close ties to corporate America.

With prominent business leaders in Harris’s circle, there’s speculation that some may get important administration roles. Harris’s brother-in-law, Uber executive Tony West, has been one of her top advisers, and billionaire investor Mark Cuban has been stumping for Harris on the campaign trail.

“This election is a battle for entrepreneurs,” he said during a recent Harris rally in Wisconsin.

How will the outcome of the US election impact markets? Join us on October 24 for a discussion on global commodities and the race for the White House. Register here.

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Behind the scenes

As Trump touts his plans for sweeping tariffs, the IMF has a stark warning from its annual meeting this week: more protectionist policies would dent already “mediocre” growth prospects globally.

With just two weeks left in the race, the IMF painted a “plausible downside alternative” to its latest set of global forecasts under which tariffs rise around the world in mid-2025, affecting a “sizeable swath” of global trade.

“It’s a policy that is harming basically everyone,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s top economist, told the FT’s Colby Smith and Sam Fleming. “It’s harming the rest of the world. It’s harming the US.”

Trump has vowed to slap tariffs of up to 20 per cent on all imported goods if elected — with even harsher levies on China — which would fundamentally reshape the US economy. Plus, last month he said countries that planned to reduce their dependence on the dollar would get hit with 100 per cent tariffs as a punishment.

The IMF forecasts global output to expand 3.2 per cent this year and next, roughly in line with estimates last released in July. The US is expected to grow slightly faster than previously expected at 2.8 per cent and 2.2 per cent in 2024 and 2025.

Datapoint

Nebraska is reliably Republican, but there’s reason to watch the city of Omaha as closely as the seven swing states on election night.

That’s because rather than awarding its electoral college votes on a winner-take-all basis, like most other states, Nebraska gives two votes to the statewide winner, and one each to the winner of its three congressional districts. Omaha makes up the bulk of Nebraska 2, which is prone to flipping between Democratic and Republican presidential candidates.

With this year’s knife-edge election, it’s possible we’ll end up in a scenario where Nebraska 2 could be decisive in giving Trump or Harris the 270 votes needed to win the White House.

There isn’t much polling from the special district, but the few surveys that exist show Harris up 5.7 per cent over Trump, according to the FT’s poll tracker.

Meanwhile, Omaha locals are duking it out with their lawn signs: Harris supporters put a single blue dot, symbolising a Democratic holdout in an otherwise Republican state, while Trump supporters brandish all-red maps in the shape of Nebraska.

Republican state senator Mike McDonnell told the FT’s Oliver Roeder that the whole country should adopt Nebraska’s system to be “more democratic”. It encourages political engagement, candidate visits, local political spending and debate.

“It does something for American democracy, to think your vote matters,” said Richard Witmer, a political scientist at Omaha’s Creighton University.

Viewpoints