While Donald Trump launched his trade war on April 2, the republican billionaire donor Ken Langone knew that he would decimate Home Depot, the company he helped to integrate into the most famous American DIY store.
His gloom has deepened while Trump followed his “liberation day” with a pricing diet on China so steep that many experts said that this would constitute a de facto embargo on the goods of the largest exporter in the world.
The reaction was double. First, the capital markets made a withered verdict, with a strong sale in American treasury bills, the dollar and global actions destroying billions of dollars of market value and raising fears of a financial crisis. The bond market alarmed Trump, who seemed to be at the dawn of a crisis like the one who overthrew Liz Truss after a month and a half as British Prime Minister.
Then, American companies took action.
From Silicon Valley to shale oil fields, JPMorgan boss, Jamie Dimon, Apple Tim Cook, some of the world's most powerful business leaders have launched an urgent campaign – sometimes in public, but especially in private – to remove Trump from the brink.
It worked – in part. In recent weeks, Trump has sold certain reciprocal prices, exempt from most of Canada and Mexico from tasks, offered huge sets for car manufacturers and said that it would sweep American agricultural producers. The stock markets have recovered their losses.
Brian Ballard, a high Lobbyist of the GOP, described a “whirlwind” in the American capital when companies rushed to influence the right people near Trump.
Some leaders played on the personal relationship they struck with Trump after his electoral victory, during trips to Mar-A-Lago or his sumptuous inauguration of Washington in January-that many of them financed personally.
“Many tariff rates, such as electronics, did not come from major industry lobbying campaigns. He seemed more than Trump directly heard managers, like Tim Cook,” said a Washington business advisor.
Langone suggested that Trump's pricing war had awakened some of the Business Americawho now had requests.
“He rocked cages,” Langone told Financial Times last month. “Now he has to feed the gorilla.”
Among the lessons in this lobbying campaign, there is that private persuasion is more effective than public coercion – and the president cares about what Street Main thinks.
World car leaders learned quickly. The “Liberation Day” hit their sector hard, because Trump hammered prices not only on adversaries such as China, but also key allies, notably Germany and Great Britain.
Even after Trump announced a 90 -day stay for most countries – China excluded – imports of foreign manufacturing cars in the United States have always been faced with a 25%tax.
Export Powerhouses BMW, Mercedes and VW decided that they could no longer count on German diplomats or European politicians and had to take matters into their own hands.
On April 18, senior executives from the three German car manufacturers met Trump at the White House during a private meeting to request relief. The bosses of the three large – Ford, Stelllantis and GM – also intensified their own lobbying efforts.
The president of Stellantis, John Elkann, warned that “the American and European automobile industries are endangered” by Trump's trade policy – a rare public intervention.
Trump on Tuesday gave a certain relief to car manufacturers, sparing the automotive parts of several prices and offering discounts to compensate for the cost of some of the samples that have remained.
It was a partial victory – but it also allowed Trump to visit Michigan Last week to praise its rescue package for the automotive sector, even if certain prices remain.
“We give them a little time before shooting them down if they don't do it properly,” Trump told supporters.
The other allies of Trump of Corporate America, on the other hand, also urged him to withdraw from the chasm, warning against a catastrophic impact on the sectors that the president had sworn to defend.
Harold Hamm, the billionaire shale magnate which coordinated the donations of oil and gas to Trump to help its elections, put pressure on the president to withdraw the prices that would have harmed the energy sector.
“I talked to Trump about what he would do for prices (in oil), especially in different parts of the country,” said Hamm. The ignition of oil prices after pricing announcements feared a new slowdown in the shale sector, a large employer and a prolific producer.
The magnate also warned it that certain refineries depended entirely on the Canadian crude – which was also a target of Trump prices, before reducing the duty on energy imports from the North neighbor.
“And so it was complicated and the president said,” Ok don't do that. “He didn't think it was a good idea.
While the sudden sale in the bonds and the increase in yields after the announcement of the prices also sparked an alarm for Trump, who sent his secretary to the Treasury Scott bets To try to calm the markets, other voices of the real economy also weighed.
Langone said that when he told the FT last month that the president was “poorly advised” and that some rates were “bullshit”, Trump heard it, according to a person knowing the issue. Langone refused to comment on the prices more through a spokesperson this week.
“The more your business is rooted in Average America and in Street Main, the more the administration and its nearby allies are likely to pay attention to the impact of political decisions,” said Kevin Madden, republican strategist of Penta.
Large surface retailers – most of them exposed to the mood of the American consumer – also warned that prices would increase prices and potentially empty shelves. The CEO of Walmart, Doug McMillon, the CEO of Target, Brian Cornell, and Ted Decker, CEO of Home Depot, met Trump in the White House. The men warned the president that his prices would bring a toxic combination of disruption of the supply chain, higher prices and empty shelves, according to Axios.
These types of warnings have been taken up by other leaders on calls for results in recent weeks – and confirmed by the shipwreck figures for the consumer feelings of the University of Michigan.
Apple's cook has obtained exemptions from the overall 145% tariff on China products used to make iPhones and other materials designed by the California group.
While those who sought to quietly influence the president won concessions, the public opposition led to deadly meetings.
Tuesday, the White House condemned a “Hostile and political act of Amazon“After the information that the technology giant intended to report price increases on its products following Trump prices.
The founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, later in the day, spoke with the president to reassure him that his business had “never approved” such a plan. “Jeff Bezos was very nice. He was great. He solved the problem very quickly and he did the right thing,” said Trump.
Wall Street also began to avoid publicly criticizing a president whom they expected to be more sympathetic for their sector, but launched attacks on law firms and other perceived enemies.
“Trump has always been disruptive and we have all underestimated the level of disturbance – we all wake up,” said a senior manager of a Wall Street bank that regularly talks about Trump's administration.
The senior manager said his financial peers had learned that he was better to send messages to Canal back to Bessent to explain how the prices harm their businesses and those of their customers.
“It is better not to do it (criticizing the administration) on television. It will not lead you very far. You would better have a more substantial conversation behind the scenes,” said the senior Wall Street.
While Wall Street Titans such as Bill Ackman, Ken Griffin and Ray Dalio made public calls public for Trump to reduce some of his plans, the sale on the bond market was more convincing. This, and a few warnings from Dimon's recession, head of the largest bank in the United States.
Other executives who are not as influential or connected as Cook or Hamm rely on their local republican politicians to transmit distress messages caused by prices or any other unfavorable policy of the administration.
“You see more political leaders, both in congress and at the state level, expressing concerns about the long -tailed effects of these commercial policies.
Additional representation Patricia Nilsson, Stephen Morris, Antoine Gara
