TRUMP FEELS HEAT AS 3MORE CEOS REVOLT
Under Armour, Intel and Merck execs resign from advisory panel
Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank said late Monday he’s stepping down from President Trump’s manufacturing job council, joining Merck and Intel in distancing his company from the administration following Trump’s widely criticized response to white nationalists’ rally at Charlottesville.
“We remain resolute in our potential and ability to improve American manufacturing,” Plank said in a statement. “However, Under Armour engages in innovation and sports, not politics.”
Also late Monday, Brian Krzanich, CEO of Intel, said in a company blog post he also had resigned from the manufacturing council.
“I resigned to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues, including the serious need to address the decline of American manufacturing,” Krzanich wrote. “Politics and political agendas have sidelined the important mission of rebuilding
“America’s leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred ( and) bigotry.” Merck CEO Ken Frazier
America’s manufacturing base.”
“As CEO of Merck and as a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism,” Merck CEO Ken Frazier said in a company tweet.
Frazier’s resignation, which was announced in the morning, prompted an angry response from Trump on Twitter. “Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President’s Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!,” Trump tweeted, before criticizing Merck once more in another tweet later in the day.
Merck develops and makes a wide variety of vaccines and drugs, including allergy medicine Clarinex and cholesterol treatments Zocor and Vytorin.
Under Armour makes athletic gear endorsed by players including Stephen Curry of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and Tom Brady of the NFL’s New England Patriots.
Merck declined to comment on Trump’s tweet regarding lowering drug prices. Prices for the most popular brand- name drugs in the U. S. have risen 208% from 2008 to 2016, according to AARP. In January, Merck issued its own pricing report that showed seven years of price hikes. Prices for its drugs rose on average 9% since 2010, it said.
This isn’t the first time Trump has clashed this year with high- profile CEOs over his handling of policy matters. In June, Disney CEO Robert Iger and Tesla CEO Elon Musk quit another White House business advisory council over Trump’s decision to withdraw the U. S. from a global climate- change treaty, called the Paris Agreement. In February, former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick also quit advising Trump on business matters over the president’s proposal to ban travel from seven Muslim countries.
Trump came under fire over the weekend for his refusal to specifically denounce neo- Nazis, KKK and other racist groups after their rally in Charlottesville resulted in at least three people killed and dozens more hurt.
After repeated calls for a more forceful response, Trump addressed reporters in the White House on Monday afternoon and said, “Racism is evil.”
“And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo- Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups,” he said.