If anyone’s expecting this group of cowards to step up, think again:
At a meeting of CEOs and other executives on Wednesday convened by the Yale School of Management, dozens of America’s business leaders sounded off on their concerns about tariffs, immigration, foreign policy matters and what many described as an increasingly chaotic, hard-to-navigate business environment.
“They’re being extorted and bullied individually, but in private discourse, they’re really upset,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale management professor who organized the event, referring to recent deals that give the U.S. government a cut of certain Nvidia chip sales and a “golden share” in U.S. Steel.
The meeting included prominent corporate executives such as Motorola Solutions Chief Executive Officer Greg Brown, who also received an award for leadership; Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel; and Ethan Allen CEO Farooq Kathwari. Other attendees included the heads of major manufacturers, consumer brands, automakers, technology companies and investment firms. Many who shared their concerns Wednesday in the confines of a private conference room didn’t want to speak publicly for fear that their companies could be targeted by the administration or that they could attract criticism from Trump.
Have the U.S. tariffs been helpful or harmful to your business?
Helpful 29%
Harmful 71%Source: Yale CEO Caucus (Sept. 17)
Executives also said U.S. consumers and domestic importing companies were the ones bearing the brunt of the costs on tariffs, not international exporting companies or countries.
The Trump administration has made tariffs core to its economic agenda, hoping to spur a resurgence in domestic manufacturing by bringing jobs back to the U.S. from overseas. And while some companies, like Apple and pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, have announced plans to make more of their products domestically, most of the CEOs gathered Wednesday took a different view. When asked whether they planned to invest more in U.S. manufacturing and infrastructure, 62% of respondents said they didn’t plan to do so.
The reason, Yale’s Sonnenfeld said, is because tariffs, immigration policies and concerns about the economy are all weighing on leaders and preventing them from feeling confident enough today to make new investments. “They’re holding back doing anything,” he said.
I’m pretty sure most of them voted for him. Not that it matters. It’s just one vote per person. But they probably gave him money and licked his boots enthusiastically every chance they got. They empower him at every step of the way and then whine behind closed doors that he’s killing their golden goose.
Imagine if all the Masters of the Universe stood up and said “no, we’re not going to let you destroy America.” They wouldn’t even have to make a political argument if that’s just too uncomfortable. They could just say that it’s bad for business. Clearly, they believe it is. But apparently they’d rather let it happen than stand up and tell the truth.
Foreign business leaders seem to be much braver(or they take their customers desires more seriously, anyway.) In S. Korea, the blowback from businesses for how their citizens were treated by ICE is severe and may have permanently damaged the business relationships. And anyone who exports to other countries has got to be just a little bit concerned. Those customers aren’t too keen on America these days. They can vote with their wallets too.