Interview with Anthony Scamucci: One Year of Trump 2.0

To mark the one-year anniversary of the second Trump administration on January 20th, OANDA interviewed former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci. In this exclusive interview, Scaramucci reflects on the economic shifts of the last 12 months and how "Trump 2.0" has impacted consumer spending, saving, and investing.

OANDA: We'll get going. It's the first anniversary of Trump 2.0 on the 20th of January. Has the first year of Trump 2.0 had a meaningful impact on US consumers? And if so, how?

Anthony Scaramucci: So objectively, I don't think it's had a meaningful impact on consumers. Let me just explain why: Inflation is roughly where it was during the Biden administration. U.S. consumer data is roughly the same.1 Some would say there’s been a slight de-consumptive effect on goods that are coming into the United States as a result of tariffs. But even there, there's a combination of things that are happening. Number one, U.S. corporations are paying the tariffs, they've absorbed a lot of the tariffs. General Motors did that for the first two quarters. There's lots of examples where companies, the Swiss watchmaker Rolex - even though those tariffs were somewhat prohibitive at 39% - absorbed those price increases at the port. And so generally, despite all the rhetoric and generally despite some of the policy decisions, it's been roughly flat 2024 through 2025 as it relates to the U.S. consumer.

In his first year returning to office, has Trump policy changed the cost of living in the US?

This is the issue with politics. We have a tendency to personalize things that are situational. So, we won't use Trump or Biden - let's use George Bush and Bill Clinton. You know, there was a recession in 1992. It became personalized to George Bush when, in fact, it was actually cyclical. Bill Clinton wins and there's an economic boom. He gets the credit for the boom. Bush gets the merit for the recession. And so sometimes in politics, we have a tendency to personalize things that are, in fact, situational.

And so what I would say to you is that the Trump administration on the margin has made it harder for the consumer as it relates to tariffs at the port. But I think they've also done things that have been energy beneficial. They've opened up oil and gas drilling as they did in the first administration. They've taken us out of the climate agreement as they did in the first administration. I think the situation in Venezuela, while it's early, there's a likelihood that there'll be an increase in oil production and as a result of which that increase would probably lead to lower prices, so oil futures are actually down a little bit. And then, again, remember, there could be a geopolitical factor too. Lower oil prices do put pressure on places like the Middle East and perhaps Russia. But no, I think generally there's been more rhetoric than there's actually been actionable things that are happening on the ground. That may change in 2026, but that's what happened in 2025.

Do you think crypto has become more legitimate under Trump?

It certainly has. I think that's an unqualified and objective yes, because he has been brought into the administration, first of all, he's become pro-crypto. And again, just speaking from a fact basis, in 2018-19, he was tweeting negatives about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. He's become pro-crypto. He's put people in the administration, Paul Atkins, SEC chair, Chris Waller at the Fed, that are pro-crypto. And you can see that in the guidance that's coming from the SEC, and you can see this in the approval. A lot of these ETFs were stalled or rejected during the application process in the Gensler SEC, and they've now been approved in the Trump era. So yes, I think it's decidedly more legitimate.

And do you think crypto will see further institutional interest and investment throughout the remainder of Trump's second term from what you've seen in the first year and the first term?

I do. And so, and I'll base this on fact, because I am very close to Galaxy. I'm very close to Coinbase Institution. And full disclosure to everybody, I own a lot of Bitcoin and I have it domiciled in those places.

Some of the altcoins went down 50%, but that's rebuilding now. I think one or two of the market makers probably suffered and they're now rebuilding their equity and liquidity base, if you will. And Bitcoin is in the process of healing. It's up slightly for the year. But I anticipate, without offering a prediction, that there might have been lots of buying in the first part of January.

There's been price movements in 2025. We saw the likes of Aave and some of these coins that were very heavy in the DeFi space taking really big hits. Do you think DeFi has taken a bit more of a hit as more institutional money has moved into some of the more established crypto assets like Bitcoin?

It has not been an altcoin market, right? If you look at the market capitalization of Bitcoin relative to all the other coins, it's at or near an all-time peak. And so I think what happens when institutions are coming in, they're probably going to buy the oldest asset. And so it's Bitcoin. Now, are you going to say, could they potentially buy Ethereum? I would say yes. Could they potentially buy something like Solana? Sure. Are there other things that are in the mix? There's a gold-backed cryptocurrency. There's things like that that obviously did very well last year. But I would say generally institutions are going to favor something like Bitcoin. And that's not to say that it won't spread out in the ensuing years, but that's where things are right now.

And speaking of gold, how has the dollar performed under Trump versus other asset classes such as crypto and gold?

Gold is the granddaddy of store of value assets, it has a 5,000-year history. Bitcoin has a 17-year history. And I think people that are my age, 60 plus, they look at gold and say, that's going to be my go-to. If I believe in potential currency debasement or a weakening of the U.S. dollar or the specter of inflation for fiat currencies in general, guess who has the money? The older people have the money. And so guess what they do? They buy gold. And so I think if you survey people that are my age, that are in the financial services community, that are trigger pullers from an asset allocation perspective, they're pre-disposition by and large as for gold.

But that also presents an opportunity for Bitcoin because as people age out of the system, the 30-year-old, 40-year-old, 50-year-old that will someday be a 60- or 70-year-old has a proclivity towards Bitcoin. And so we watched that happen with the internet. And I think we're going to see that happen in a digital asset like Bitcoin.

Do you think the price rises of gold have had an impact on the dollar and the value of the dollar?

I think gold's market cap has surprised people with its growth thus far this year. It's roughly $30 trillion. As it relates to gold, if we're going to continue to debase the U.S.dollar, if we're going to run very, very high deficits, could gold go higher? I think it's very possible. I don't think people should be looking at gold as a static asset anymore. That's just my opinion.

If you were looking at the past trends in gold, you think it's pretty much a static asset, low volatility. The U.S. dollar has lost 33% of its value since January of 2020, that's six years. We've lost 33% of our value. So it would be impossible for gold not to move up on that basis. And again, so we're talking about real value versus inflation-based value. If we're going to have inflation, which it looks like we do, people could look at the 3%2 inflation numbers and say they're legitimate, but I could tell you, you go on the street, ask the average person, they don't think the inflation's at 3%. It's way higher than that. If you look at the prices of food, energy, prices of housing, it feels like it's way higher than 3%. It doesn't strike me that gold is going to be a static asset over the next couple of years.

And to what extent are current global shifts in trade settlement and central bank reserves indicating a structural decline in the U.S. dollar dominance? I think that that does indicate a structural decline. But up against that is the U.S. just took over effectively 17% of the world's oil assets. If you understand the economy centered on the petro-dollar, the notion that we're going to trade the most valuable commodity in the world in U.S. dollars, the Venezuelans were trading with the Chinese RMB. They could have been trading the oil at a discount due to sanctions, and perhaps they were getting goods from China in return. One could imagine the U.S. frowning upon that. They want everything in the Kissinger doctrine of being traded in the petro-dollar. And so if those two things are conjoined and the U.S. is trying to still make that happen, even though we're experiencing inflation, I think the dollar will remain supreme over the ensuing years. I'm not saying that's going to be 25 years, but it could easily be 10 or 15.

What are the pros and cons for consumers for saving, investing, and trading their money?

We've had a buoyant stock market. We've had an AI boom. Some could suggest it could potentially creep into an AI bubble. We've had a lot of capital spending and energy because these AI data centers need lots and lots of robust energy. Crypto also needs lots of energy. And so we're having a power surge, which is affecting all of that infrastructure around energy. We're probably heading into a period of lower interest rates. If you think about where the Federal Reserve is going directionally, the next Federal Reserve chairman is likely to put the pedal to the metal as it relates to interest rate cuts. And so for those reasons, you should have a buoyant stock market. I'm not saying it's a perfect environment. There's pockets of risk as it relates to potential military activity and some of the unknown unknowns that could happen geopolitically. But if you look across the dashboard economically, and usually the first couple of days of trading are a pretty good indicator of what goes on in the ensuing year, people are getting ready to get long in their portfolios. But obviously new variables are coming into play everyday. So economic data is mixed.

What's interesting about the data, you can make the data look like things are trending upward in certain ways, such as capital expenditures, infrastructure into data centers, et cetera, the AI virtuous circle. And then you can make it look bad in certain ways. There's an ambivalence of the data as it relates to disposable income for the lower and middle income people. And as it relates to economic anxiety for consumer pricing, the Trump administration and President Trump recently announced that they may prevent private equity buyers of residential homes. That's telling you something about where they think affordability is going in the U.S. I'm not, again, I don't want to opine on whether or not that's a good or bad idea from a market perspective, the government's hand being in that business, but I'm just simply saying that there is a mixed bag of economic data if you actually look at the results.

What are your thoughts on the drivers of the correlations that we've seen between the dollar and other asset classes, such as oil, gold, the stock market, et cetera?

I think historically, if gold was moving up, you would think that something like the stock market would be moving down. And again, when somebody tells you that this time is different, you run for the woods because it's never different.

But I do think what's happening right now is there's an explosion in capital expenditures, which is affecting the balance sheets of a lot of these large corporations. And the Mag7 are still really running the market. In a situation, at least temporarily, where gold is up, stock market is up, economy is doing okay, interest rates are trending down, you could also make an argument that the recent productivity gains, productivity gains coming from AI, robotics, biotechnology are actually going to lower prices and are deflationary.

You have to be very careful with punditry here because you could get something wrong if you're anchoring it too much to a historical analysis. You have to accept that technology is forcing some level of change in the way we think about the economic cycle and prosperity.

What have been the market drivers for the fall in the price of oil in the last 12 months?

There's a number of different things. The price of oil below $78 a share puts pressure on the Middle Eastern economies that rely on the oil. So you get caught in this vicious cycle where you're pumping more oil to gain more revenues, but it's actually reducing the price per barrel. So that's creating some economic anxiety in places in the Middle East. It's also putting pressure on the Russian government because that's a big source of their revenues.

It creates an environment where the price goes down, they pump more, it creates a lower price. The other thing is the administration has become very energy friendly, the Trump administration.

I think it goes without saying that the operation in Venezuela will probably mean lower oil prices if it becomes a takeover.

But let's be realists here: I don't think anybody wants the oil to go below $50 a barrel because then you set up a situation where you're blowing out the, you know, energy stocks are going to go down. The Middle East is going to face a lot of economic pressure. If you're really being honest with people, the equipoise is probably $65 to $80 a barrel, which keeps the supply flowing, the wildcatters in the Permian Basin in Texas and people making some level of profits.

But again, if you’re the Trump administration, you want to focus on affordability. Petroleum touches everything from our cosmetics to our pharmaceuticals to our clothing. And so the petroleum is touching every part of our lives. If that price goes down, it does dramatically improve affordability. So you could see us talking at the beginning of 2027 and say, wow, lower oil prices led to lower costs of goods, led to a better economic environment, and gave the Fed some room to lower rates, which meant it was a positive experience for the stock market.

But when you said that sweet spot being that kind of $65 to $80 a barrel, just explain to me why kind of that's the sweet spot?

This is because below that, you start to get into a bust cycle in places like Texas. You get into a bust cycle in areas of the Middle East where it may even cost more to pump the oil than you're actually getting it in the spot market. Just go back to the year 2020 for oil because the Cotango situation went to zero. I think there was a brief period where it traded at negative dollars per barrel. That caused a huge bust in the energy belt of the United States.You have a contraction in jobs. You have a contraction in consumption. You have a slowdown in GDP. You know, you don't want it too expensive because then it cripples other elements of the economy, but you don't want it too low either because you need to have a robust energy market where the energy is flowing, particularly right now where you're transitioning some of the economy into AI, where you're going to need that energy for the data.

1 3% under Biden vs 2.7% under first year of Trump’s second term

2 2.7% as per U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics January 2026