The prospect of Donald Trump winning the US presidency represents a global threat on a par with jihadist militancy destabilising the world economy, according to British research group EIU, reports AFP from London.
In the latest version of its Global Risk assessment, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked victory for the Republican front-runner at 12 on an index where the current top threat is a Chinese economic “hard landing” rated 20.
Justifying the threat level, the EIU highlighted the tycoon’s alienation towards China as well as his comments on Islamist extremism, saying a proposal to stop Muslims from entering the United States would be a “potent recruitment tool for jihadi groups”. It also raised the spectre of a trade war under a Trump presidency and pointed out that his policies “tend to be prone to constant revision”.
“There are risks to this forecast, especially in the event of a terrorist attack on US soil or a sudden economic downturn,” it added.