Trump also signaled he planned to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), enacted in 1994, which eliminated most tariffs between Mexico, the U.S. and Canada.
More recently, Trump has sent series of tweets complaining that the U.S. was being treated unfairly in trade deals.
But Faber was unfazed on how that would affect Asian markets.
“When you see Mr. Trump lambasting the exporting countries of Asia, calling China – he hasn’t declared it officially a currency manipulator 104281479 and so forth, what is the reaction of the leadership in Beijing,” he asked.
“Everybody in Asia and around the world, including Mexico and the Europeans will say, ‘the U.S. is no longer a reliable trading partner and no longer a reliable ally. We have to look after ourselves,'” he said. “So the Chinese are pushing essentially domestic-led growth.”
Faber pointed to the rise in exports from Taiwan and South Korea to China over the past three months, attributing it to Chinese domestic consumption rather than exports to the U.S.
He said he expected Asia’s stock markets would feel the benefit, with Hong Kong and Singapore markets potentially returning as much as 15 percent this year, including dividends.
At the same time, Faber expected that U.S. markets might not perform as well as emerging markets, despite the “hoopla” over Wall Street’s recent rally.
He noted that the U.S. economic expansion and the bull market were now around 8 years old and getting “mature.”
—By CNBC.Com’s Leslie Shaffer; Follow her on Twitter @LeslieShaffer1
