Economist Roubini compares Trump strategies with communism

The economist who predicted the global stock market crash in 2008 has said that if Barack Obama had espoused policies put forward by president-elect Donald Trump, he would be labelled a communist.

In a highly critical speech given at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday, Nouriel Roubini also added that the United States would fall behind economically as it limits its trading scope.

Roubini, who is famously known as "Dr. Doom" following his prediction of the housing bubble that led to the financial crisis, said that China was likely to emerge as the unlikely leader of the free trade economy.

"Some of the tone of bashing firms and telling them where to produce and what to do ... If Obama had done any of those things then he would have been accused of being a communist," Roubin said in Davos. "But the fact that Trump is doing it is considered to be good industrial policy by some people, not by me."

According to Roubini, China will be able to take advantage of any trade lost from the US if Trump's administration pursue their isolationist policies.

"(China is promoting) globalization and free market capitalization at a time when the new incoming leader of the biggest capitalist country in the world talks as if it is scared of competition, of globalization, of trade," Dr. Doom said at the seminar.

The World Economic Forum continues its annual meeting on Thursday, with many of the world's leading economic figures gathering in the Swiss resort ahead of Trump's inauguration on Friday.