Former Trump economic adviser says recession is ‘off the table’ for first half of 2023

Former Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn said on Sunday that the United States is in “pretty good shape” and he does not expect a recession during the first two quarters of 2023.

“I think that people … have been really worried about a recession in the first and second quarter of this year,” Cohn told Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I think after what we’ve seen this week with both [Federal Reserve] Chairman [Jerome] Powell’s announcements and the data and unemployment, I think that recession is off the table for Q1 and Q2 of this year.”

He also said that while interest rates and borrowing costs have been increasing for companies, the dollar has been weakened, which means that the offshore repatriated earnings of multinational corporations in the U.S have become “more valuable.”

The Fed last Wednesday issued its smallest rate hike since March 2021 as officials said that the higher rates have been working to bring down inflation. The U.S. also added 517,000 jobs in January, and the unemployment rate dropped to 3.4 percent, which is the lowest it has been since 1969.

“It does feel like we’re in relatively good shape here,” Cohn said on CBS. “The question is going to be, how does the Federal Reserve handle what’s going on in the economy?”