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Christophe Barraud predicted a Republican sweep and spike in the 10-year yield. Barraud, a top US economy forecaster, expects GDP growth to exceed consensus forecasts. He also expects higher inflation and shares concerns over the deficit crossing 7.5% of GDP. In the months leading up to the US election, betting markets were choppy, at one point leaning in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris over President-Elect Donald Trump. But as we got closer to voting day, things began to consolidate. By October, there was enough data for Christophe Barraud, the chief economist and strategist at Market Securities Monaco, to confidently make a call, concluding that it would likely be a Republican sweep . And he nailed it. His economic models also forecast that the result would cause a shock spike in the 10-year yield to at least 4.5%. On November 6, as results from the polls rapidly poured in, the yield hit an intraday peak of 4.75%. As of Friday, it was hovering near 4.4%. Looking ahead, Barraud, who Bloomberg has ranked as the most accurate forecaster of the US economy every year except once since 2012, is making some slight adjustments to his 2025 projections for US GDP growth and inflation. "Now that we have a clear result without a contested election, I'm pretty sure that many companies will adjust their CapEx, will invest more, and will also add more jobs," Barraud said. "Whoever was elected, the economy was supposed to accelerate. But with Trump, I think that there could be a kind of sentiment boost in the short term because a lot of consumers and companies are expecting tax cuts, which could be positive even before implementing them." He previously said that US GDP growth in 2025 would be stronger than expected at 2.1%, above Bloomberg's consensus forecast of 1.9%. Post-elections, he anticipates a slight boost to that number and may revise it upward over the next few weeks to 2.2% or 2.3%. This follows the assumption that adverse weather conditions and election uncertainty temporarily damped growth. Near term, he will look for clues from wage growth, jobless claims, and company commentary on Christmas sales as confirmation. Despite the Republican sweep, Trump will still face friction on his policies. Barraud expects a handful of Republican senators to push back on changes that could aggravate government debt . It means Trump will be forced to lower the bar on his promises to avoid shaving too much off government revenue. Otherwise, the budget and deficit would explode, Barraud noted. For example, if Trump wants to make the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 permanent, the promised corporate tax-rate cut of 15% may need to look more like 17% or 18%, he noted. Based on information pulled from the Congressional Budget Office, the Tax Foundation, and conversations Barraud is having with clients, including large banks and hedge funds, he has concluded that if the deficit exceeds the threshold of 7.5% to 8% of GDP annually, it would significantly impact long-duration US Treasuries. The fiscal budget gap for 2024 is 6.4%, up from 2023's deficit of 6.2%. "The idea is that if the deficit is above this threshold, the interest rate on the 10-year could go beyond 5%, and it'll have a negative effect on the economy, especially for the housing market," Barraud said. "So we think that beyond 5%, there could be negative spillover, and that could be counterproductive." The spillover would go beyond mortgage rates. As the yield rises, servicing US debt would become more expensive, borrowing costs for companies and consumers would rise, and at some point, multiples would come under pressure, hurting the stock market, too, he noted. Finally, inflation could be higher than expected in 2025. He projects the consumer price index averaging 2.5%. A stronger labor market will cause this, especially wage growth and new job creation, combined with labor shortages from restrictive immigration policy. And as tariffs take effect toward the end of the year, it could further boost inflation.Sugar addiction is on the rise. Globally, sugar intake has quadrupled over the last 60 years, and it now makes up around 8% of all our calories. This sounds like sugar’s keeping us fed, but added sugars are actually empty calories – they are bereft of any nutrients like vitamins or fibres. The result is massive health costs , with sugars linked to obesity around the world. Some estimates suggest that half the global population could be obese by 2035. A limited 20% reduction in sugar is estimated to save US$10.3 billion (£8.1 billion) of health costs in the US alone. Yet, sugar’s impacts go far beyond just health and money. There are also many environmental problems from growing the sugar, like habitat and biodiversity loss and water pollution from fertilisers and mills . But overall, sugar hasn’t received a lot of attention from the scientific community despite being the largest cultivated crop by mass on the planet . In a recent article , we evaluated sugar’s environmental impacts and explored avenues for reducing sugar in the diet to recommended levels either through reducing production or using the saved sugar in environmentally beneficial ways. By phasing out sugar, we could spare land that could be rewilded and stock up on carbon. This is especially important in biodiverse tropical regions where sugar production is concentrated such as Brazil and India . But a different, more politically palatable option might be redirecting sugar away from diets to other environmentally-beneficial uses such as bioplastics or biofuels. Our study shows that the biggest opportunity is using sugar to feed microbes that make protein. Using saved sugar for this microbial protein could produce enough plant-based, protein-rich food products to regularly feed 521 million people. And if this replaced animal protein it could also have huge emission and water benefits. We estimate that if this protein replaced chicken, it could reduce emissions by almost 250 million tonnes, and we’d see even bigger savings for replacing beef (for reference, the UK’s national fossil fuel emissions are around 300 million tonnes ). Given sugar has a far lower climate impact than meat, this makes a lot of sense. Another alternative is to use the redirected sugar to produce bioplastics, which would replace around 20% of the total market for polyethelyne, one of the most common forms of plastic and used to produce anything from packaging to pipes. Or to produce biofuels, producing around 198 million barrels of ethanol for transportation. Brazil already produces around 85% of the world’s ethanol and they produce it from sugar, but instead of having to grow more sugar for ethanol we could redirect the sugar from diets instead. This estimation is based on a world where we reduce dietary sugar to the maximum in dietary recommendations (5% of daily calories). The benefits would be even larger if we reduced sugar consumption even further. Supply chain challenges This sounds like a big win-win: cut sugar to reduce obesity and help the environment. But these changes present a huge challenge in a sugar supply chain spanning more than 100 countries and the millions of people that depend on sugar’s income. National policies like sugar taxes are vital, but having international coordination is also important in such a sprawling supply chain. Sustainable agriculture is being discussed at the UN’s climate summit, Cop29, in Azerbaijan this week. Sustainable sugar production should factor into these global talks given the many environmental problems and opportunities from changing the way we grow and consume sugar. We also suggest that groups of countries could come together in sugar transition partnerships between producers and consumers that encourage a diversion of sugar away from peoples’ diets to more beneficial uses. This could be coordinated by the World Health Organization which has called for a reduction in sugar consumption . Some of the money to fund these efforts could even come from part of the health savings in national budgets. We can’t hope to transition the way we produce and eat sugar overnight. But by exploring other uses of sugar, we can highlight what environmental benefits we are missing out on and help policymakers map a resource-efficient path forward to the industry while improving public health. Paul Behrens is British Academy Global Professor, Future of Food, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford . Alon Shepon is Principal Investigator, Department of Environmental Studies, Tel Aviv University. This article was first published on The Conversation .
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