Source: Jinshi Data

The private talks of corporate leaders about Trump are significantly different from what they are willing to express in public. This inconsistency was fully demonstrated this week.

Double business executives and others gathered at the Yale CEO Caucus, not far from the White House, earlier Tuesday, when news that Trump may plan to double tariffs on steel and aluminum from Canada. The people in the conference room responded to this in a mixed manner, some sighed, and some laughed in shock. "We are generally disgusted with Trump's economy," said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at Yale School of Management. He organized the invitation-only summit, with business owners attending JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon, billionaire Michael Dell and Albert Bourla of Pfizer. "They were especially shocked by (for) Canada."

However, a few hours later, when many CEOs who attended the Yale conference participated in a Q&A session with Trump at the Business Roundtable, they hid that sentiment very well. There, the exchange was basically friendly and executives did not ask the president any sharp questions about his tariff strategy, according to people familiar with the situation.

Some business leaders mentioned the need for stability. "Surfing from one extreme to another is not the right way to go. We have allocated billions of dollars to invest, so we really need a consistent and lasting one," Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said at an energy conference in Houston on Monday.

Some others have limited their comments to the cost impact of tariffs on their industries. Alcoa boss said steel tariffs would result in the loss of thousands of U.S. jobs, while Target CEO warned that the proposed tariffs on Mexico would quickly push up grocery prices. During an event at the Economic Club of Chicago last month, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said some consumers were showing signs of economic stress.

However, as the stock market enters a pullback range, companies have hoarded goods and re-arranged supply chains, few people have publicly and directly complained about the president's trade strategy. This is with the CEOs in TroyThe public positions that Prussians often took during his first term were different, when they made statements on a range of issues ranging from immigration to climate.

In an impromptu investigation at the Yale conference, CEOs made it clear that they would publicly criticize the president only if the situation worsened significantly. When asked how much the stock market needs to fall before they can speak out together, 44% said they must fall 20%. Another 22% said the stock market had to fall 30% before they could make a stand.

Many people don’t want to say anything in any case: In answering the same survey question, nearly a quarter of CEOs said they think it’s not their duty to openly object. They prefer to criticize the president on security issues.

Other CEOs attending the conference include Richard Dickson of Gap, Lynn Good of Duke Energy, and Glenn Fogel of Booking Holdings, the parent company of Priceline. Andrew Ferguson, the new chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, also made a brief appearance.

The day before, CEOs from International Business Machines, Qualcomm, HP and other tech companies met with the president and his senior advisers in the Roosevelt Room in the White House, according to the Wall Street Journal. According to a person attending the meeting, some CEOs expressed their concerns about Trump’s tariffs, warning that it could harm their industry.

Some CEOs say one reason for the waning criticism during Trump’s second term is that many business leaders welcome Trump’s pledge to push for relaxation of regulation and lower taxes — and hope that the tariff threat is largely just a brief bargaining chip in negotiations.

Some corporate executives say they think they can have a greater impact in closed-door negotiations, rather than in public. They fear that public criticism would make themselves the target of the president's use of his authority to attack and prompt him to stick to rather than abandon his tariff agenda.

"I'm shocked by how fear people are and how unwilling they are to speak out. This has never been seen before." Bill George, former CEO of medical device company Medtronic, said he remains in touch with executives in various industries. "They don't want to stand opposite to the president and his supporters."

Former Trump official said that just a voice of criticism may not be enough to make an impact.

"Trump listened to everyone's opinions, not just one person. Reince Priebus said he served as chief of staff in Trump’s first White House. Priebus was hired this week as a senior adviser to Centerview Partners to help the boutique investment bank’s clients cope with the new situation.

This open silence contrasts with Trump’s first term, when CEOs often check and balance the president’s immigration or inflammatory rhetoric—and often on topics that have no direct relationship with business affairs.

After Trump’s ambiguous response to the racial protests in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, Kenneth, then-Merck CEO, was A large number of senior executives led by Frazier resigned from the White House advisory board. Even Elon Musk resigned from the presidential advisory board after Trump decided to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement that year.

“Now they are hiring companies to deal with Trump. "Buss said, "Businesses have traditionally believed that companies can ignore what happened in Washington, but this view has been broken. ”

The outlook for the economy has become bleak since Trump imposed some tariffs in early February while delaying others. According to a survey conducted by the International Association of Certified Professional Accountants (IACPA) last month of more than 300 executives, 47% said they were optimistic about the U.S. economy, down 20 percentage points from the 67% who expressed optimism in the fourth quarter of 2024, which conducted the survey once a quarter.

White House spokesman Kush Desai said business leaders responded to Trump’s economic agenda and promised to invest, which would create thousands of new jobs. “President Trump achieved historic jobs, wages and investment growth in his first term and is expected to do it again in his second term. ” Desai said.

However, former Medtronic CEO George revealed that several business leaders he spoke with in recent weeks have said that long-term investment, forecasting and decision making is nearly impossible with so much uncertainty in Washington. Many people are worried that if Trump and his officials attack them, it will cause trouble for their businesses, which is one reason some companies are considering winning his favor with legal settlements or other moves.

"The atmosphere has completely changed. "George said, "What you hear in public is completely different than what you hear in private." ”