The Corporatization Of Donald Trump

"Who wants open borders? Who wants men playing in women’s sports? Who wants all-electric cars?" — Donald Trump at a recent Nevada rally

Recently, Donald Trump met with the Business Roundtable, which is the most important business lobby in America. Composed of roughly 200 CEOs of top corporations and private equity funds, many of whom are in the crosshairs of antitrust, the Business Roundtable is a key organizing forum for Presidential candidates.

I pay close attention to the current administration because I write about the legal and policy choices of the government. But an election is coming. And given the Business Roundtable meeting, I decided to spend some time on Trump. He’s a hard figure to analyze because little of the news coverage about him is about real policy. And there’s almost no awareness of what his government really did while he was in office.

I listened to three recent speeches, then I compared them to what he said in 2016 and what he did on antitrust and trade while in office.

What I found was surprising. In 2016, he feuded incessantly with corporate America, telling a story about big business as part of the corrupt establishment trying to outsource jobs and replace American workers with cheap labor. His post-presidential years have seen a different figure. He just doesn’t talk about corporate America very much anymore. Something has changed.