(Kitco News) - Legendary investor Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, is back, and he's warning that the next bear market is going to be "horrible, compounded by too much debt and a trade war."
The longest bull market in American history will be short lived, as macroeconomic problems will surface soon, Rogers said.
"Later, this year or next year when the economies around the world are getting bad, Mr. Trump is going to blame everything on the foreigners, the Chinese, the Germans, the Japanese, everybody, and then the trade war will come back and then it's all over," Rogers told Kitco News.
Rogers added that trade war tensions may escalate as the Trump administration is determined to win.
"Mr. Trump is going to come back. Mr. Trump believes in his soul and his brain that trade wars are good and that he can win trade wars. Mr. Trump knows that he is smarter than everybody else so he knows that he can win a trade war, and it will come back strong. When the American economy gets bad eventually, he's going to blame it on trade and the trade war and it's going to be terrible," he said.
Rogers said that it usually takes multiple failures on the industry or even country level before people start taking notice.
"The way these things have always worked, in 2007, Iceland went bankrupt, and most people had no clue about that and didn't know or care, and then later though, Ireland went bankrupt. Few more people noticed. A little while later after that, Bear Stearns went bankrupt. A few more people started noticing. A few weeks later, Northern Rock went bankrupt, then people started catching on. Eventually, Lehman Bros. went bankrupt and by then it was on the evening news all over the world.."
Watch the full interview with Jim Rogers on Kitco News.
Forget Gold's Rally, Get Smart and Buy Silver Says Rich Dad's Robert Kiyosaki
This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held TK positions in the stocks mentioned.