We interrupt this regularly scheduled program
Huge news on the domestic policy front – per a Twitter announcement, President Trump’s two business advisory councils – the Strategic and Policy Forum and the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative – have been disbanded.
The sequence of events has been fast and difficult to follow, but here’s how things went down.
See ya later
On Monday, Kenneth C. Frazier, the CEO of pharmaceutical giant Merck, resigned from the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative in protest at President Trump’s comments on the recent violence in Charlottesville. By the evening of the same day, Brian Krzanich of Intel and Kevin Planck of Under Armour had done the same. They were quickly followed by Thea Lee and Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO, Scott Paul of the Alliance of American Manufacturing, Denise Morrison of Campbell Soup and Inge Thulin of 3M.
This morning, in response to the sudden exodus, Stephen Schwartzman, chief executive of the Blackstone Group and longtime Trump business and political ally, led a conference call of the remaining council members this morning to debate how to proceed.
By the end, all members had resigned.
In short, President Trump is not disbanding his advisory councils in the sense of (no “The Apprentice” jokes, please) firing their members. The members already quit. The President’s Tweet simply announced that had taken place, and that, as it states he “disbanded” the now-vacant groups, there are presumably no plans in the near future to replace them.
Bold move
This is a surprising move from the President. Historically the role of business advisory councils has been to keep an open communication pipeline between the President and the American business community, something this president has consistently identified as a priority. President Trump has always positioned himself as passionately pro-business, particularly concerned with global competitiveness and the loss of jobs and revenue in American manufacturing.
The Strategic and Policy Forum and the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative were founded specifically to address those issues.
The business community in particular had expected the President to draw heavily on their advice.
On the other hand, that advice has repeatedly conflicted with the President’s other policies. Well before Charlottesville, the Strategic and Policy Forum had seen high-profile resignations: Bob Iger of Disney and Elon Musk of Tesla (who served on, and resigned from, both the SPF and the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative) resigned over the President’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, and ex-CEO of Uber Travis Kalanick departed over restrictions on immigration from the Middle East.
New directions
President Trump’s elimination of his business advisory councils clearly indicates a new direction in the relationship between the White House and the American business community.
What that direction will be, and what consequences it will have for the economy, remain to be seen.
#ByeByeBusiness
