Contradictions abound in Trump advisers
The differing economic views could be unprecedented
During the presidential campaign, President-elect Donald Trump took contradictory positions on economic issues — reversing himself several times on raising the minimum wage, whether the government should pay for health care, and what to do with the 11 million people living illegally in the United States.
As he takes office, Trump has baked those disagreements into his Cabinet and wider circle of appointments to a degree that presidential scholars say is unprecedented, making it difficult to read how the new administration will proceed on a host of thorny issues.
“Presidents typically are careful to nominate
Cabinet members who agree with the basic thrust of their policies,” said George Edwards III, the Jordan Chair of Presidential Studies at Texas A&M University. “The fact that in many cases Donald Trump did not do so indicates a lack of concern for policy specifics. It is fine to argue that the president likes a range of views, but there is likely to be substantial slippage if his key officials disagree with him on core policies.”
The most fundamental rifts are over government interference in business operations to achieve specific goals and the degree to which America should be integrated with the rest of the world.
Trump has voiced a willingness to put his presidential thumb on the scale of business decisions in ways that have unnerved traditional conservatives — by publicly shaming manufacturers for moving jobs to Mexico, for example. At the same time, he’s brought in some of the most fundamentalist free-marketers in Washington to join the team as well.
“Trump is definitely a populist, so there’s going to be friction on economic issues,” said James Granato, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “If you had a Democratic president browbeating Carrier and Ford, people would go crazy.”
The two philosophical poles in the White House are best embodied by campaign manager turned White House adviser Steve Bannon, a media entrepreneur and self-identified “economic nationalist” who has pushed Trump in a more populist, protectionist direction, and incoming National Economic Council Chairman Gary Cohn, who as president of the investment bank Goldman Sachs represents a class of borderless global elites that Trump railed against on the campaign trail.
As far as specific issues, start with trade. Trump promised a harder line on countries like China and Mexico, calling for steep tariffs for companies that moved production overseas to sell back into the United States, and pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement with 13 Asian and South American countries.
Some of his appointments reinforce that position. Trump’s pick for commerce secretary, billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, is a former Democrat who won praise from the United Steelworkers union for his practice of buying distressed steel mills and putting them on a firmer footing. In his confirmation hearing Wednesday, Ross defended tariffs and said that renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico would be a top priority.
In addition, Trump’s chosen U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, is an attorney who has represented manufacturers and harshly criticized China for dumping cheap steel on the world market. Trump also created a new National Trade Council headed by University of California economics professor Peter Navarro, who authored a book called “Death by China” on how the country’s trade practices have harmed America.
In the other camp are picks like Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, whom Trump tapped as ambassador to China. Branstad’s state depends more on agriculture than manufacturing, and he was a strong backer of the Trans Pacific Partnership as a way to expand exports to other Pacific Rim nations. Close Trump adviser and longtime CNBC anchor Larry Kudlow, who has been mentioned as a top candidate to head the Council of Economic Advisors, is an ideological proponent of free markets who has described Navarro’s trade positions as “just wrong.”
For another schism, take investment in infrastructure, a promise that has boosted markets with the prospect of increased federal spending. Bannon has promoted Trump’s “trillion-dollar” plan for building new highways, bridges, airports and railroads, and Cohn reportedly inspired the plan’s heavy reliance on tax credits to draw in private investment. The nominee for Treasury secretary, fellow Goldman alumnus Steven Mnuchin, has also spoken favorably of the plan.
But Trump’s choice for budget director, Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, is a strong opponent of government spending of all kinds as a founding member of a group of fiscal hardliners called the Freedom Caucus. That includes money for the Pentagon, which Trump has also promised to increase.
There’s a grab bag of other internal contradictions: Trump’s pick for labor secretary, fast-food CEO Andrew Puzder, has spoken in favor of relaxed immigration laws, a sharp contrast to Trump’s calls for building a wall along the border with Mexico. While Trump has promised “insurance for everyone,” his choice for the Health and Human Services Department, Rep. Tom Price, proposed a plan that did not include universal coverage as a goal.
In his hearing, Mnuchin diverged from Trump by backing a strong dollar, which could pose challenges to the recovery of manufacturing.
So far, Trump seems unconcerned by the statements that his Cabinet picks made contradicting his stances in their confirmation hearings.
“I want them to be themselves and express their own thoughts, not mine!” he tweeted last week.
And it’s not unprecedented for presidents to hire deputies who are opposed to each other, sometimes as a way of creating a unified coalition government, as with Abraham Lincoln’s famous “team of rivals.” But subsequent Cabinets have typically either shared fundamental goals, or foundered in confusion.
“Franklin Roosevelt loved to pit one adviser or Cabinet member against another, but they were all firm believers in the New Deal,” said Lyn Ragsdal, the Radoslav Tsanoff Chair of public affairs at Rice University. “Jimmy Carter set up a large group of equals with direct access to the president. This fell apart quickly because there were too many people competing for access, and none of them got along.”
Aaron Crawford, a visiting fellow at the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University, recalls that differences of opinion on economic matters in Bill Clinton’s first Cabinet were largely put to rest by a warning from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan that the federal deficit was getting too large. That kicked off a push to raise taxes and cut spending.
“Maybe the Clinton administration was the least cohesive, but it came together very quickly,” Crawford said. “That’s normal. What’s going on now is not typical. I’m at a loss for words. I don’t know what to expect.”
In these kind of situations, Ragsdal and Crawford noted, the administration becomes a competition between advisers to maintain the trust of the president, who, at the end of the day, calls the shots. If others don’t fall in line, well, there’s another difference between Trump, star of “The Apprentice,” and his predecessors: lots of experience in cutting people loose.
“This president,” Crawford said, “will have no problem firing people if he needs to.”