TRUMP OFFERS NOWHERE TO HIDE
simply a business move that reflected slumping sales. That didn’t stop Trump from blasting the retailer for “unfairly” treating his daughter or White House press secretary Sean Spicer to suggest that the Nordstrom move was a response to Trump’s policies. Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway also publicly urged the nation to buy Ivanka Trump fashions online — advice that prompted ethics criticism and admonitions.
After initially dropping 1% after Trump’s tweet last Wednesday, Nordstrom shares rose more than 4% for the day and ended the week 2.5% higher at $45.
John DiMarco, an associate professor of communications at St. John’s University in New York, said that Nordstrom deserves points for attempting to use a very Trump-like message to justify their move. “How could Donald Trump argue with a company acting on poor performance?” DiMarco said.
Motorola Solutions experi- enced how simply raising the specter of raising Trump’s ire can have ramifications.
The Chicago-area-based company’s stock dipped by more than 5% on Tuesday after a short seller urged Trump — who has previously taken to Twitter to rail against government contractors he feels are overcharging — to scrutinize the telecom company’s pricing of radios to U.S. law enforcement agencies. (In December, the then-president-elect sent shares of Boeing and Lockheed Martin tumbling after tweeting complaints about government contracts with the aerospace companies.)
Further complicating the terrain for corporate executives, Trump backers and opponents are running increasingly aggressive campaigns on social media, pressuring companies to get in line with their political ideology or face the prospect of consumers shopping elsewhere.
The anti-Trump #GrabYourWallet campaign cur- rently lists more than 60 companies that either are owned or operated by Trump’s family, sell Trump-branded products or whose top executives supported the president’s run for the White House.
On the other end of the political spectrum, the conservative group 2nd Vote is pressing companies, such as retailer Macy’s, to resist calls to dump Ivanka Trump products. The group is also encouraging coffee drinkers to ditch Starbucks after its founder Howard Schultz rebuked Trump’s executive order restricting travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries and vowed to hire 10,000 refugees at shops worldwide.
Starbucks does not appear to be fearful that its stance is hurting its bottom line.
“We’ve been very pleased and energized to see the strong response from customers in support of this effort,” said Starbucks spokeswoman Linda Mills. “Our stores are as busy as ever.”
“How could Donald Trump argue with a company acting on poor performance?” John DiMarco, associate professor of communications, St. John’s University