During his first two working days in office, President Donald Trump sat down for three separate meetings with the heads of major U.S. manufacturing firms, labor union leaders and American auto manufacturers, setting the groundwork for his job creation agenda.
In a breakfast meeting on Monday, Trump heard from chief executives from 12 companies, Dell, Whirlpool, Ford, Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed Martin, Arconic, Dow Chemical, US Steel, Tesla, Under Armour, International Paper, and Corning. It was the first in what will be a series of quarterly meetings focused on getting private sector input on Trump’s “America first” economic agenda.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the meeting was a chance for President Trump to hear the challenges these business leaders face and “take some suggestions about what policies and action can be taken to help them create jobs and grow our manufacturing base.”
In addition to hearing their concerns, Trump also made his concerns known, presenting carrots and sticks to the CEOs. According to reports from the meeting, Trump said he intended to “cut regulations by 75 percent, maybe more” to make it easier to do business in the United States. But he also warned that companies seeking to offshore production and sell their goods back into the U.S. market would no longer get a free ride.
“If you go to another country and you decide that you’re going to close and get rid of 2,000 people or 5,000 people … we are going to be imposing a very major border tax on the product when it comes in,” Trump said.
Only a few hours after meeting with Fortune 500 executives, Trump sat down for a “listening session” with top labor leaders. The attendees represented millions of workers from North America’s Building Trades Unions, Laborers’ International Union of North America, SMART sheet metal workers’ union, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, and the United Association that represents plumbers, pipefitters, welders and others.
The union meeting was particularly significant as it followed shortly after Trump issued an executive order to officially withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multi-nation trade agreement that was almost universally opposed by organized labor. It also underscored the seismic political shift Trump’s campaign represented, as he carried more union support than any Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan.
The Building Trades Unions leaders issued a statement after the meeting thanking Trump for taking the time to consider the views of the 3 million construction professionals represented by the union. “Today was a great day for America and for American workers,” they said, anticipating a continuation of the dialogue with the new White House.
The industry meetings continued on Tuesday when representatives from America’s Big Three automakers, Ford, Fiat-Chrysler, and GM, sat down with Trump in the Roosevelt Room. Before the meeting Trump tweeted, “I want new plants to be built here for cars sold here!”
The auto sector has been a prime target for the new president, as many outsourced production to Canada and Mexico following the 1994 North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The White House has suggested that the president could announce plans to renegotiate NAFTA as early as this week.”I am pleasantly surprised that the president took the time out of his first working day to meet with manufacturing leaders as well as union leaders,” Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing said. “At least so far on manufacturing issues we’re getting positive signals out of the White House.”
Announcing the U.S. withdrawal from TPP free-trade deal was one of those signals that resonated with Paul, who noted that “every economic analysis showed that manufacturing would have lost jobs under TPP, regardless of its other benefits.”
The possible upshots for manufacturers did not end with the U.S. withdrawal from TPP, but continued on Tuesday when Trump signed another order to revive two controversial energy projects, canceled by President Barack Obama. Plans for the Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines were defeated by Native American groups and environmental activists, respectively. Meanwhile, supporters of the pipeline projects saw an opportunity for U.S. energy independence and job creation.
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) said he is “ecstatic” about Trump reviving the Keystone XL pipeline, saying he anticipates the project spurring job growth in his own state of South Carolina. The 12-foot tall earthmover tires for the vehicles involved in the oil sands recovery are made in South Carolina’ 2nd congressional district at the Michelin plant in Lexington, South Carolina, Wilson said proudly.
“We have at least 300 people, maybe 500 making these tires that will be shipped directly to Alberta, Canada … and it will create hundreds of additional jobs in South Carolina,” he said. “It just has such a ripple effect.”
When it comes to working with President Trump on reducing regulations, Wilson agrees that the Congress has to eliminate the unjustified rules that weigh down American businesses. “I am confident that many of the regulations are simply a nuisance and a bar to economic development,” he said, adding that the burdens of unnecessary regulations “actually encourage companies to locate overseas.”
Trump does not have to wait for Congress to make good on his campaign pledge to cut the red tape and reverse any number of regulations enacted during the Obama years, affecting environmental standards, financial services, consumer protection, labor, land use, and other areas.
“The executive orders that have been presented by Mr. Obama, those could be eliminated and that would probably be half of it,” Wilson said of Trump’s pledge to cut unneeded regulations by 75 percent. For the others, he will need buy in from lawmakers on the left and right.
However, some Democrats also see a way forward and could imagine working with Trump to build momentum on the job creation of recent years.
“Regulations for small companies need to be a lot easier, we all agree on those things,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said. He noted that he would “absolutely” work with the new administration on these issues of common interest. Cardin went on to express his support for Under Armour’s CEO Kevin Plank, who attended the White House meeting on Monday and is expanding operations at its headquarters in Baltimore.
Now that Trump has taken office, his tough stance on offshoring and threats of a border tax may provide a deterrent for companies that would have sent manufacturing jobs overseas.
“I think that companies will now see a bigger downside to offshoring production, particularly with the intent of selling those products back into the United States,” Paul said. During his presidential campaign and during the transition period, Trump named and shamed companies like Carrier, Ford, and Boeing, encouraging the manufacturers to keep production domestic and affordable.
“I think they’re listening,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said of the business community. Commenting on Trump’s hands-on tactic of dealing with the American manufacturing giants, he smiled, “Jaw-boning has been an important tool in the president’s toolbox for decades.”
But in addition to the threats of a border tax, or promises of a permissive regulatory environment, Rep. Wilson stressed the importance of Trump meeting face to face with CEOs, getting those individuals personally invested in his economic policies.
“It’s really great to have a personal relationship with the different business leaders in creating jobs and understanding the concerns they have,” he emphasized. “And the way to do it is to meet with them personally.”
During the economic recovery, Obama set up various economic advisory teams, bringing in private sector consultants to reverse the loss of tens of thousands of jobs during the Great Recession. He set up the Manufacturing Council at the Commerce Department and convened the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, among other initiatives.
If the Trump initiatives remain focused and productive, it could accomplish a great deal in restoring American manufacturing and spurring the creation of more well-paying jobs for the workforce at large.
“A high-level group that meets regularly with the president on manufacturing in particular could be a very beneficial development moving forward,” Scott Paul noted. “And to the extent that the Trump administration and the Congress heed the advice of a group like that, it could be positive news for communities that depend on manufacturing.
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