How Trump’s first term became a roller coaster for business leaders

Building on his pro-business ideology, Trump worked to reduce regulations within the federal government and signed into law his $1.5 trillion tax plan that Republicans were able to pass through Congress as a party majority. This project, which was opposed by Democrats in Congress, constitutes the largest overhaul of the tax code in decades.

For much of the business community, the law, which reduced the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, was a long-awaited accomplishment.

But Trump’s presidency was also marked by high-profile clashes that, over time, led him to become a polarizing figure among leaders who often agreed with him on many policy issues. As Trump touts his past handling of the economy before November, here’s a look at his relationship with the business community during his first term:

One of their own

Decades before Trump entered national politics, he gained national prominence as a wealthy real estate developer and businessman. As a presidential candidate, Trump’s background was unique in that he had neither been a governor nor a congressman nor had any military training.

But in a presidential year when many Republican voters were looking for an agent of change, his business experience gave him a major advantage as a political outsider.

For many in the business world, Trump was essentially one of them. His relationship with top business leaders started on a high note, especially after welcoming a dozen CEOs (including Tesla founder Elon Musk) to the White House during his first week in office, where he stressed his desire to implement tax cuts.

However, Trump’s relationships with many of these leaders disintegrated following the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white nationalist groups unleashed a wave of violence. Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old woman who was gathered with a crowd of counterprotesters in downtown Charlottesville, was killed after a white supremacist walked into the group.

Trump, days after the incident, sought to emphasize that some attendees were protesting the removal of a Confederate statue and were not in Charlottesville to cause trouble, but his remarks backfired spectacularly.

“There were some very bad people in that group, but there were also some very good people, on both sides,” he said. “I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned many different groups. But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists at all.”

After these comments, Kenneth Frazier, then chief executive of Merck, resigned from Trump’s manufacturing council.

“American leaders must honor our fundamental values ​​by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, intolerance and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal,” he said. declared at the time.

Under Armour’s Kevin Plank, 3M’s Inge Thulin and Intel’s Brian Krzanich, among others, also resigned.

Trump then abruptly disbanded the American Manufacturing Council and the Strategic and Policy Forum.​​

The infrastructure terrain

Trump signed an executive order in July 2017 to create an infrastructure advisory council, similar to his other councils, but ultimately rejected it.

The inaction on the infrastructure council reflects Trump’s eventual inaction in advancing a comprehensive infrastructure plan, despite his assertion that he would rebuild America’s roads and bridges, particularly in hard-hit communities in the Rust Belt struggling to recover from factory closings and declining tax bases. .

Even the promise of “Infrastructure Week” has become a long-standing slogan. Trump has proposed spending between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion on infrastructure in 2017 and 2018.

But he got distracted every time he tried to come up with a plan.

At a Rose Garden event in June 2017, Trump accused former FBI Director Jim Comey of lying under oath to Congress, moving him away from his goal of focusing on infrastructure. In August 2017, a Trump Tower event intended to provide updates on Trump’s infrastructure plan was dominated by his response to the violence in Charlottesville. And in February 2018, Trump’s infrastructure proposal took a back seat to accusations of misconduct from two close aides.

Trump’s plans to repair the nation’s bridges, ports and railroads fell through in 2018, even though the Republican Party had full control of Congress until January 2019.

“We have a very important election coming up, and they don’t like the victories that we’ve had,” Trump said in 2018, seeking to shift blame for infrastructure inaction onto Democrats.

Even after the 2018 midterm elections — when Democrats took back the House but Republicans retained control of the Senate — Trump never pushed a major infrastructure plan through Congress.

That task became a rallying call for his successor, President Joe Biden, who signed a landmark $1 trillion infrastructure bill into law in November 2021 that funded everything from port modernizations and subsidies Amtrak to critical bridge repairs and broadband.

Turn to technology

During the 2016 presidential campaign, many high-level tech executives lent their support to Clinton’s campaign.

But after the election, Trump invited a wide range of technology leaders to Trump Tower and expressed a desire to work with them on innovation. At the December 2016 meeting, the group talked about job creation, trade and infrastructure, according to the Trump transition team.

One of those executives in attendance was Musk, years before he acquired Twitter and renamed it X.

In June 2016, Trump met with top tech executives, including Apple’s Tim Cook and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, to design a solution to overhaul the federal government’s IT systems. But the meeting came as many leaders remained staunchly opposed to Trump withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate accord earlier this month. (Biden rejoined the deal in January 2021.)

Cook told Apple employees at the time that he tried to convince Trump to stay in the deal, but said his appeal “wasn’t enough.”

In 2020, several tech leaders – including Cook – criticized Trump’s visa restrictions that would impact the sector’s highly skilled foreign workers. The Trump administration at the time said the move was made to provide positions for American workers during the pandemic.

Cook then declared himself “deeply disappointed” by this decision.

“Like Apple, this nation of immigrants has always found strength in our diversity and hope in the enduring promise of the American dream,” the leader added.

Ahead of the November election, Trump is turning to Silicon Valley — where Biden enjoys considerable support — to close a significant financial gap with his Democratic rival.