The News
US business leaders delivered some of their sharpest criticism of US President Donald Trump Monday, as even the president’s biggest re-election campaign champions started to waver over his contentious tariff measures.
The criticism followed a nationwide wave of more than 1,200 protests over the weekend organized by the group “Hands Off” that took place in opposition to Trump’s early actions in office — the biggest public show against the president since his November election victory.
Demonstrators rallied against his sweeping tariffs, firing of government workers, dismantling of health and social programs, and immigration crackdown.
SIGNALS
Americans’ discontent with Trump is growing
The protests come amid growing dissatisfaction, especially among the left, “what they see as a lack of strong resistance” to Donald Trump, The New York Times noted. Now, “a different kind” of opposition — spearheaded by moderate, civilian government workers — “is brewing,” one pro-labor analyst wrote. Though Trump’s immigration policies remain popular, recent polls indicate that a majority of voters are deeply concerned about cuts to federal benefits or services and disapprove of his tariff strategy. “The US is already suffering from a loss of consumer and business confidence,” one academic told The Guardian, with pain beginning to creep into people’s pocketbooks: American households are likely to lose $3,800 as a result of higher prices from tariffs, Yale Budget Lab predicted, with clothing costs alone set to increase 17%.
Corporate America remains cautious
Even Donald Trump’s biggest corporate supporters have begun voicing frustration over his tariff strategy: Elon Musk has called for Washington to agree a massive new free trade zone with the European Union. Fellow billionaire Trump donors Daniel Loeb and Bill Ackman have also come out against the tariffs, marking “a shift from the support or careful silence that Wall Street has largely deployed since the election,” Bloomberg wrote. JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned that the measures will hurt growth and cause inflation, at least in the short term. Still, some bank and hedge fund executives have pointed to the fact that trading has continued largely unimpeded in spite of the tariff blitz. And it remains to be seen whether a majority of big companies will “pick a high-profile fight with the president,” one academic told The Economist.
Opposition within the right could hamper Trump
So far, Donald Trump “has worked with little regard for public criticism,” The Wall Street Journal wrote. That could change: Trump’s upending of the global trade system using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which lets the president restrict some imports during national emergencies, “blows the sky off the statute,” a law professor told The Economist. Already, a conservative legal nonprofit has filed a lawsuit alleging executive overreach. Republicans lawmakers have also initiated an effort to give Congress a say over tariffs, while a handful of Senate Republicans have been outspoken in their criticism of the president’s trade measures. Still, it remains to be seen how much effect such criticism can have given the strong support Trump enjoys from congressional leadership, Yahoo Finance’s Washington correspondent wrote.