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Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world
Donald Trump has created all sorts of problems for American chief executives, from ever-changing tariff policies to the politicisation of interest rates to personal attacks on individuals who cross him. Yet business leaders have been slow to speak out. The reasons range from an opportunistic belief that tax cuts and deregulation are worth the chaos, to a misplaced trust in their own ability to manage the president, to a legitimate fear of being personally targeted by Trump.
But the horrors of Minneapolis are changing that calculus. A day after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a nurse who was protesting against immigration raids in the city, 60 leaders of large Minnesota companies — including Target, Best Buy, 3M, General Mills, UnitedHealth Group, US Bancorp and Cargill — issued a public letter calling for an “immediate de-escalation of tensions” in their state. Within hours, the chief executive of the Business Roundtable, Josh Bolten, announced support for the letter.
Around the same time, several hundred technology executives and investors began an anti-ICE protest campaign. “We all witnessed ICE brutally kill a citizen on the streets of Minneapolis,” read the social media post signed by professionals from companies such as Google, Amazon, Salesforce and Uber. “When Trump threatened to send the national guard to San Francisco in October, tech industry leaders called the White House. It worked: Trump backed down. Today, we’re calling on our CEOs to . . . cancel all company contracts with ICE . . .[and] speak out publicly against ICE’s violence.”
Unfortunately, just before their employees started sounding off, several Silicon Valley CEOs were in Washington to attend a screening of Melania, an Amazon documentary about the first lady. It was an uncomfortable reminder of the sycophantic way that too many business titans in America have behaved towards a president who is eroding trust in the country’s political economy.
The question now is whether Minneapolis will be a turning point after which more business leaders finally start speaking out about the damage being done by this administration. It should be such a moment — not only on moral grounds but also for reasons of self-interest.
Let’s start with the issue of immigration itself. New Census Bureau numbers showed that the US population grew just 0.5 per cent between July 2024 and 2025, thanks largely to the fact that net migration dropped from 2.7mn to 1.3mn. The Census Bureau projected that number would fall to 321,000 this year. Nativists like Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser, might think this is a good thing. It isn’t: GDP is just population and productivity combined. Cutting the labour force creates both a tailwind for inflation and a potential headwind for growth.
As Atakan Bakiskan, US economist at Berenberg, put it in a recent investor note: “For the first time since the 1918 Spanish flu, the second world war and the Covid-19 pandemic, the US resident working-age population may decline on a year-over-year basis. With near zero or negative net immigration in 2025 and 2026, the US economy is unlikely to deliver GDP gains close to those recorded in Q2 and Q3 2025.” America’s CEOs should be calling the White House daily to ask why the president is so aggressively trying to get rid of one of the country’s most important economic advantages.
They should also be complaining about the climate of fear Trump is creating, not only for immigrants but for consumers. The market may be at record levels but so is gold, which highlights how worried people are about the future. Consumer confidence is now at its lowest level in 12 years. People are more pessimistic now than they were during the pandemic, which is likely to constrain spending. More CEOs of retail companies should be up in arms about this. They should be asking the president what he’s doing to lower the price of energy and groceries, aside from trying to strong-arm reluctant oil executives into investing in Venezuela or telling farmers hurt by tariffs to lower their prices.
America’s business elites should also be very worried about how the president’s actions have provoked profound changes in future international trade and investment flows. The EU just signed a major trade deal with Latin America and is tightening ties with India. Smaller countries, including the UK and Canada, are courting China for business as the US is considered less reliable.
In response to the recent Canadian deal allowing thousands of Chinese electric vehicles into the country, General Motors CEO Mary Barra told employees: “I can’t explain why the decision was made in Canada.” I can. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and many other politicians globally know they can’t count on Trump (witness the most recent White House threats to impose 50 per cent tariffs on Canadian aircraft, which will hurt US businesses that depend on them). American business leaders should be equally concerned. Yes, there are some US companies making hay with new White House contracts. But executives who think another three years of tax breaks will make up for the undermining of so many fundamentals are deluding themselves. Their profits will ultimately suffer if they don’t push back. Their consciences should, too.