Billionaire hedge fund boss Ray Dalio has a dire warning about President Donald Trump.
Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, told the Financial Times in an interview released early Tuesday that the United States is moving toward autocratic-style politics, pointing to how a decline in trust, “gaps in wealth” and “gaps in values” are pushing “more extreme” policies.
“What is happening now politically and socially is analogous to what happened around the world in the 1930-40 period,” Dalio said.
Dalio pointed to the Trump administration’s acquisition of a 10% stake in U.S. chipmaker Intel, which was announced in a historic deal last month, likening the move to “strong autocratic leadership that sprang out of the desire to take control of the financial and economic situation.”
“I am just describing the cause and effect relationships that are driving what is happening,” Dalio told the outlet. “And by the way, during such times most people are silent because they are afraid of retaliation if they criticize.”
Dalio also rebuked Trump’s pressure against the Federal Reserve, after the president moved to fire the central bank’s governor, Lisa Cook, who is now suing to keep her seat on the board. Trump announced last week that he ordered her ousting, citing allegations of mortgage fraud, though she has not been charged with a crime.
Meanwhile, Trump has frequently targeted Fed Chair Jerome Powell, as the central bank head has continued to draw the president’s ire for refusing to follow through with his demands of lowering interest rates. Dalio said that Trump’s threats against the bank’s independence “would undermine the confidence in the Fed” when it comes to the value of money, and could “make holding dollar-denominated debt assets less attractive which would weaken the monetary order as we know it.”
He noted that the Fed continues to face a stark choice: “Allow interest rates to go up and have a debt default crisis, or print money and buy the debt that others won’t buy.”
In the interview, Dalio also called attention to the rising national debt, saying that “many years of big deficits” have brought the economy to the brink of crisis. He did say, however, that the worsening situation has been overseen by presidents from both sides of the aisle, before Trump started his second term.
“The great excesses that are now projected as a result of the new budget will likely cause a debt-induced heart attack in the relatively near future,” he said. “I’d say three years, give or take a year or two.”
Dalio is a rare example of a prominent financial figure who has long been critical of Trump in the past — even comparing Trump to previous far-right regimes in his most recent book. In April, he had warned that the president’s sweeping tariffs could drift the country toward a recession, or “something worse.”
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