Trump’s a Businessman. Where’s His Business Backing?

[Libertine]

Trump’s a Businessman. Where’s His Business Backing?

Should it come as a surprise that not one chief executive among the Fortune 100 has donated money to Donald Trump’s campaign?

That was the news reported by The Wall Street Journal after tabulating the latest donation disclosures through August.

Mr. Trump’s supporters trumpeted, excuse the pun, the lack of donations from the nation’s largest companies as a badge of honor. Big business, they say, has failed the country, so why would their guy want its support?

But the logic of this argument is backward. Mr. Trump has campaigned as a successful businessman, a brilliant negotiator and someone, as he said in his own words, who can “get along with people.” He has contended that his economic policies will unleash unheard-of levels of growth — as much as 6 percent. He plans to lower corporate taxes, remove regulations and allow companies to repatriate cash held overseas. Together, these policies sound like a C.E.O.’s dream.

And yet here we are: Many of the most successful business people in the country refuse to support him — or do business with him, either.

This is not an opinion. In case there is any doubt, here is a list of companies that in the last two years have publicly severed or reduced business relationships with Mr. Trump, mostly over his inflammatory rhetoric: Macy’s, Univision, Comcast’s NBCUniversal, Serta, Disney’s ESPN, the PGA Tour, Nascar and Perfumania.

Those companies, which have customer bases that include broad swaths of the nation that ostensibly look like the electorate, all said some variation of what Macy’s said: “In light of statements made by Donald Trump, which are inconsistent with Macy’s values, we have decided to discontinue our business relationship with Mr. Trump.”

Virtually no big United States banking institution has done new business with Mr. Trump in years, in part because of his history of bankruptcies and his penchant for litigation. During orientation for new employees, Goldman Sachs specifically used to use Mr. Trump as an example of the kind of prospective client to avoid.

Still, based on Mr. Trump’s policies, you would think that companies like Apple or Nike, which have railed for lower taxes and are pining to bring tens of billions dollars stashed abroad back to the United States, would be kneeling at the altar of Mr. Trump.

For a group that has historically leaned Republican, the absence of contributions to Mr. Trump is eye-opening.

There is a good reason, wholly unrelated to political correctness, that the business community has not rallied around Mr. Trump’s economic plans. On its merits, that plan is expected to hurt the economy, according to nonpartisan economists. It is hard to find many serious economists, except a handful mostly advising his campaign, who say otherwise.

According to the Committee for a Responsible Budget, a nonpartisan think tank that includes a list of luminaries from both sides of the aisle, Mr. Trump’s economic plan would add $5.3 trillion to our national debt.

Mr. Trump’s risky approach could start a trade war that could be disastrous for the country’s largest companies. And the uncertainty of the negotiations themselves could slow the economy and rattle our foreign neighbors.

Mr. Trump, the self-described great negotiator, may brush aside the views of the country’s leading business executives — but perhaps that is because he hasn’t been able to strike a deal with them.


NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/27/bu...king.html?_r=0


Fortune

http://fortune.com/2016/09/24/fortun...-donald-trump/


Wall Street Journal

http://www.wsj.com/articles/no-fortu...ump-1474671842