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Donald Trump has said it might be good that the pound has crashed in the wake of Brexit.
The plummeting value of British citizens' assets will mean that more people will come to his Scotland golf resort, he said.
Speaking after more than £100 billion was wiped off the FTSE 100 as the index fell more than 7%, and as the pound crashed 8% against the US dollar, Mr Trump said that the carnage would help his own business interests.
Donald Trump heckled in Scotland Mr Trump was speaking as he opened his newly-refurbished Turnberry golf resort, just the day after Britain voted to leave the European Union.
Speaking at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, he said: "If the pound goes down, we're going to do more business.
"If the pound goes down, more people are coming to Turnberry, frankly.
6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect youShow all 6 1 /66 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you 6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you More expensive foreign holidays The first practical effect of a vote to Leave is that the pound will be worth less abroad, meaning foreign holidays will cost us more
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6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you No immediate change in immigration status The Prime Minister will have to address other immediate concerns. He is likely to reassure nationals of other EU countries living in the UK that their status is unchanged. That is what the Leave campaign has said, so, even after the Brexit negotiations are complete, those who are already in the UK would be allowed to stay
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6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you Higher inflation A lower pound means that imports would become more expensive. This is likely to mean the return of inflation – a phenomenon with which many of us are unfamiliar because prices have been stable for so long, rising at no more than about 2 per cent a year. The effect may probably not be particularly noticeable in the first few months. At first price rises would be confined to imported goods – food and clothes being the most obvious – but inflation has a tendency to spread and to gain its own momentum
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6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you Interest rates might rise The trouble with inflation is that the Bank of England has a legal obligation to keep it as close to 2 per cent a year as possible. If a fall in the pound threatens to push prices up faster than this, the Bank will raise interest rates. This acts against inflation in three ways. First, it makes the pound more attractive, because deposits in pounds will earn higher interest. Second, it reduces demand by putting up the cost of borrowing, and especially by taking larger mortgage payments out of the economy. Third, it makes it more expensive for businesses to borrow to expand output
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6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you Did somebody say recession? Mr Carney, the Treasury and a range of international economists have warned about this. Many Leave voters appear not to have believed them, or to think that they are exaggerating small, long-term effects. But there is no doubt that the Leave vote is a negative shock to the economy. This is because it changes expectations about the economy’s future performance. Even though Britain is not actually be leaving the EU for at least two years, companies and investors will start to move money out of Britain, or to scale back plans for expansion, because they are less confident about what would happen after 2018
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6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you And we wouldn’t even get our money back All this will be happening while the Prime Minister, whoever he or she is, is negotiating the terms of our future access to the EU single market. In the meantime, our trade with the EU would be unaffected, except that companies elsewhere in the EU may be less interested in buying from us or selling to us, expecting tariff barriers to go up in two years’ time. Whoever the Chancellor is, he or she may feel the need to bring in a new Budget
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"The pound has gone down and we will see what the impact of that is.
"But I think places like Scotland, England and different places in Great Britain, I think you're going to see a lot of activity.
"The pound got high and people weren't able to do what they wanted to do, for travelling and other things.
"I think it could very well turn out to be a positive.
"Nobody really knows. You'll know in about five years, you'll be able to analyse it.
"Maybe it will take even longer than that, but what is known is that they've taken back their independence, and that's a very important thing."
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