‘Noise’ from Trump has US firms in tizzy

Confusion surrounding the trade policies of President Trump’s administration means US companies no longer know the rules of the game, a board member and former chief executive of toymaker Hasbro told an international conference on Monday.

Addressing a conference attended by business leaders, politicians and academics to discuss globalization and other challenges for corporations, Alan G. Hassenfeld, whose family founded America’s second-largest toymaker in the 1920s, said, “We thought, you know, if you run a business today you would like to know what the rules of the game are.”

“Right now in America we don’t know what the rules of the game are. They are changing constantly,” said Hassenfeld, a billionaire with a large stake in Hasbro, whose stock has risen 34 percent this year and is now at alltime highs.

Hasbro makes many of its toys outside of the US and has markets worldwide. Hassen said there was great uncertainty on trade with Trump. “Right now we don’t know whether we are friendly with Mexico, whether we are friendly with Canada, whether we are friendly with China, whether we are friendly with Russia,” Hassenfeld explained. Trump has said he wants to renegotiate NAFTA between the US, Mexico and Canada to try to win better terms for US workers and manufacturers. Hassenfeld said the confusing situation had been created by so much white noise, and smoke, coming out of the White House right now that the most important thing is basically to improve confidence.” Hassenfeld said gridlock in Congress over Trump’s promises on fixing health care, spending on infrastructure and implementing tax reform, was not helping. “Right now, our Congress and in some cases our courts, are caught up in trying to figure out what they are going to do with the executive branch,” he said. “So right now, we are in that — almost twilight zone — that we are really not sure where things are going."