Trump Presidency A Global Threat, Economic Intelligence Unit Warns

British research organization the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) recently released its new report on global risk. In the report, the group assigns a Donald Trump U.S. presidency a risk level of 12 out of 25 in terms of the global economy.

The EIU specifically mentions that a Trump presidency would likely greatly increase the risks of Islamic terror attacks and trade wars between the U.S. and both China and Mexico.

“His militaristic tendencies towards the Middle East (and ban on all Muslim travel to the U.S.) would be a potent recruitment tool for jihadi groups, increasing their threat both within the region and beyond,” the report reads.

Ironically, the EIU says that a Trump presidency currently poses the same risk level to the global economy as jihadi terrorism does.

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The report named a hard economic landing in China as the top risk to the global economy.

Although Trump has gained tremendous momentum as the probable Republican nominee in recent weeks, the EIU does not expect him to defeat likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the general election.

Just this morning, Tony Fratto, a former aide for George W. Bush, told CNBC that he believes Clinton would trounce Trump in a general election, noting that Trump is currently “not running close at all” in national polls versus Clinton.

As the election has started to heat up in 2016, risk trades like the SPDR Gold Trust (ETF) GLD have outperformed the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY by a wide margin year-to-date.

Disclosure: the author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.