XPost: alt.politics, us.politics, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   From: luser-Trump@gmail.com   
      
   Trump, the Anti-Business President   
      
      
   Donald Trump is a perpetual danger to every company in America.   
   Steve Chapman | April 5, 2018   
      
      
      
   White House economist Peter Navarro, whose boss claimed credit when the   
   stock market was rising, now thinks it should be ignored. After Monday's   
   plunge, he said, "The market is reacting in a way which does not comport   
   with the ... unbelievable strength in President Trump's economy." Rest   
   easy, Navarro advised. "The economy is as strong as an ox."   
      
   He should hope so, because its burdens are growing. Donald Trump's trade   
   salvos against China moved Beijing to slap new tariffs on U.S. products.   
   He has threatened to end NAFTA, which would wreck the supply chains of   
   U.S. manufacturers and deprive farmers of vital markets. He's itching for   
   a full-scale trade war, and he's likely to get it.   
      
   The tycoon who raised high hopes in the corporate sector has revealed a   
   powerful anti-business streak. Get on his bad side and you may kiss your   
   profits goodbye. He's a perpetual danger to every company in America.   
      
   Trump's Justice Department filed an antitrust suit to stop a merger of   
   AT&T and Time Warner—owner of CNN, a Trump punching bag—surprising   
   experts, most of whom see no threat to competition in the deal. He urges   
   higher postal rates for Amazon because it has the same owner as The   
   Washington Post, whose coverage often infuriates him.   
      
   The administration's effort to block travel from several predominantly   
   Muslim countries brought a lawsuit from some 160 tech firms warning it   
   would impose "substantial harm on U.S. companies, their employees, and the   
   entire economy." His crackdown on undocumented immigrants disrupts   
   agriculture because, as the American Farm Bureau Federation notes, "50-70   
   percent of farm laborers in the country today are unauthorized."   
      
   Trump threatened retribution against Ford and General Motors to discourage   
   production in Mexico. When Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier resigned from Trump's   
   manufacturing council to protest his comments on Charlottesville, the   
   president took to Twitter to demand that he "LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!"   
      
   Republicans regularly depicted Barack Obama as a socialist. In 2010, the   
   head of the Business Roundtable, an organization of corporate CEOs,   
   accused him of "doing long-term damage to growth" by creating "an   
   increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation."   
      
   Hostile? Obama never denounced an American company with anything close to   
   the menace Trump routinely exhibits. Business somehow prospered during his   
   presidency. Corporate profits grew by 57 percent, and the Standard &   
   Poor's 500 stock index rose by 166 percent.   
      
   Obama drew criticism for imposing more regulations on business, boosting   
   the top income tax rate, overhauling health insurance, and running big   
   budget deficits. These changes raised doubts about the future that weighed   
   on the economy.   
      
   Economists Steven Davis (University of Chicago), Scott Baker   
   (Northwestern), and Nicholas Bloom (Stanford) attributed weak growth and   
   job creation to "extreme uncertainty" that Obama helped to create through   
   "harmful rhetorical attacks on business and 'millionaires,' failure to   
   tackle entitlement reforms and fiscal imbalances, and political   
   brinkmanship."   
      
   Hmm. Does that sound like anyone else? Trump has also attacked businesses,   
   failed to curb entitlements, and, through tax cuts and spending bills,   
   created ever-growing fiscal imbalances.   
      
   According to the index these economists devised, economic policy   
   uncertainty was greater in Trump's first 13 months than in the same period   
   under Obama—and bigger than the average for all of Obama's tenure. And   
   things are only getting worse.   
      
   Obama took the view that the private economy needed extensive regulation   
   to avert assorted perceived harms, which didn't make him popular among   
   capitalists. But he didn't make a habit of bullying corporations to make   
   particular business decisions or demonizing executives who disagreed with   
   him. Trump's idea of a good economy is one in which every company does his   
   bidding—because they are all afraid not to.   
      
   His unpredictability breeds anxiety, not confidence. He often sows   
   confusion that makes bad policies even worse.   
      
   Davis cites the steel and aluminum tariffs, which Trump first said would   
   apply to all countries, then revised to exempt Canada and Mexico, and then   
   modified to spare several other countries—but only till May 1, when all   
   bets are off. The haphazard approach "causes businesses to step back and   
   wait," says Davis, "and creates a free-for-all among lobbyists, which   
   creates its own uncertainty."   
      
   Trump was supposed to understand the needs of American businesses. But he   
   thinks their main function is to serve his needs. Navarro has a point in   
   comparing the economy to an ox, because the president is treating it like   
   a beast of burden.   
      
   Steve Chapman is a columnist and editorial writer for the Chicago Tribune.   
      
      
   http://reason.com/archives/2018/04/05/trump-the-anti-business-president   
      
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