Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Trump's CEO Councils Closed Down in Tantrum

The infantile behavior of the President of the United States continues to plumb the depths of selfishness. His two business advisory councils faced a rash of resignations by CEOs of some of America's biggest companies following his ham-fisted endorsement of neo-Nazis and the KKK in the wake of the Charlottesville attack. Rather than replace the businessmen who left, President Trump decided to close down both councils, effectively taking his ball and going home to pout.

His manufacturing council had 8 members quit, beginning with Ken Frazier, the CEO at Merck. Before anyone else could resign, Mr. Trump pulled the plug.

CNN reported, "The second group, the Strategic and Policy Forum, was led by Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman. It included some of the biggest players in finance and business: JPMorgan (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon, PepsiCo (PEP) CEO Indra Nooyi, General Motors (GM) CEO Mary Barra, and Walmart (WMT) CEO Doug McMillon. It had met several times since it was established shortly after the election.

In a statement Wednesday, members of the Strategic and Policy Forum said that "intolerance, racism and violence have absolutely no place in this country and are an affront to core American values."

"We believe the debate over Forum participation has become a distraction from our well-intentioned and sincere desire to aid vital policy discussions on how to improve the lives of everyday Americans. As such, the President and we are disbanding the Forum," the group said.

The fact is that the vote to dissolve happened the day before the president found out, and he quickly hit Twitter to spin the move as his decision.

In the grand scheme of things, these advisory groups are not really all that important. American business will get its point of view into the legislative process anyway. The work of the two councils will simply be informal. If Jamie Dimon or Mary Barra call the White House, they will speak to the president, or at least the chief of staff.

What does matter here is the fact that Mr. Trump can't seem to get along with other businessmen and women. Mr. Art of the Deal seems incapable of dealing with other people whose expertise in business is at least equal to his own.

As this journal has said on countless occasions, the interests of the hard-right and the business community have diverged for years. Both of them remain adherents to the Republican Party out of inertia more than anything else. Now, the marchers in Charlottesville put the CEOs of these councils in an awkward position, or more accurately, the president's statements supporting the KKK and the neo-Nazis did. The CEOs have a responsibility to their companies to avoid being boycotted. Continued formal association with the Trump administration is to invite such a boycott.

Moreover, Mr. Trump was not going to be able to replace them. Since the resignations stemmed from those statements, anyone accepting an appointment would tacitly be endorsing those same statements. No business leaders needs to voluntarily walk into such a mine field.

Mr. Trump didn't really lose any support with these resignations, but the business wing of the Republican Party and the hard-right have moved farther apart.

© Copyright 2017 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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