Business and a Second Trump Term
If Donald Trump wins a second term, he has promised to govern as no modern president has, imposing steep tariffs, rounding up immigrants, freeing Jan. 6 rioters and possibly pulling out of NATO. Trump has signaled that he will accomplish all this by appointing loyalists, rather than the more moderate military leaders and corporate executives from his first term.
Even so, many C.E.O.s are unconcerned, as my colleague Jonathan Mahler described them in a recent article. They don’t believe Trump will do what he has promised, in contrast to many scholars who have studied politicians like Trump and believe that he will follow through.
To make sense of the situation, I asked for help from Jonathan and three Times reporters who have been covering Trump’s second-term plans: Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Swan. Our exchange follows.
‘They can work with him’
David Leonhardt: Do C.E.O.s just assume that Trump will fail to implement his agenda — or do they quietly support it?
Jonathan Mahler: Most C.E.O.s are not wild about a second Trump term. They had a rocky ride the first time around — though they did get the tax cuts and deregulation they wanted — and they are pretty sure he will bring instability, which is generally bad for business.
Having said that, many are also down on President Biden, who has been much more aggressive about regulating business. And I don’t have the impression that they have absorbed the messages that Trump and his allies have been sending about what a second term would look like.