7/4/2018

BUSINESS/ECONOMY/NAFTA/OIL/TAXES/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “’The assault on the American auto industry is over,’ President Trump declared last spring in Detroit, promising auto executives that he would throttle back Obama-era regulations on vehicle pollution. The moment embodied one of Mr. Trump’s main political promises — to promote pro-business policies that unshackle industry and the economy. He has pledged to create an oil and gas boom that will spawn ‘massive new wealth’ and to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement to eliminate ‘big trade barriers’ for American products. His new taxes on metal imports ‘have already had major, positive effects’ on classic Rust Belt industries like steel and aluminum, the White House has said. Even as the president’s pro-business stance is broadly embraced by the corporate community, in some significant cases the very industries that Mr. Trump has vowed to help say that his proposals will actually hurt them. They also warn that policies designed to aid one group will eat into someone else’s business in ways that policymakers should have anticipated. If nothing else, experts say, the unpredictability of many of Mr. Trump’s proposals — the lack of clarity on when or how Nafta might be renegotiated; the risk of potential litigation over his rollback of auto-pollution rules; the ways in which other countries might retaliate against Mr. Trump’s tariffs — seeds confusion across the American economy, making it tough for businesses to plan effectively for the future.”

Coral Davenport and Ana Swanson, “How Trump’s Policy Decisions Undermine the Industries He Pledged to Help,” The New York Times online, July 4, 2018