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Your guide on what the US elections of 2024 mean for Washington and Le Monde
Little by little, one by one, they started to go out.
After Days of Market Mayhem, the American billionaires finally did something this week that few high bosses have done since Donald Trump took office in January: his absence from the actions of the American president.
Trump’s radical rates, they said, were a “huge policy of politics” born of “stupidity” which could trigger an “economic nuclear winter” and in some cases equivalent to “Bullshit”.
Talk about a gear change. Until the market of the market, companies in the United States had shown striking levels of deference on Trump’s agenda.
It is difficult to say if it will change after his intercaillia, but what is clear is how difficult it is to face a determined administration to upset the normal rules of commercial engagement.
To start, there is a simple confusion.
Last week, I spoke to Nneka Chiazor, head of the Washington Public Affairs Council, a non -partisan association of public affairs professionals for some of the largest American companies.
She had just returned to meet some of her members in Brussels, who dotted her with questions such as: “Can we still say” green “?”; “Is” clean “still ok?”; “Could it be ok if we participated in climate week (New York)?”
“People find it difficult to show respect for the American administration” while honoring their commitments to customers and other stakeholders, “she said.
This fight is more difficult when you see how heavy it can be for companies to turn around on the measures they have defended that are not stimulated with the Trump administration.
“Everyone looks completely hypocritical and without direction,” said New York University professor Alison Taylor, author of Higher Ground: How Business can do the right thing in a turbulent world. “It has the impact of doing everything they say seem completely incredible, which does not think it is super intelligent.”
Then there is a financial risk.
The number of buyers visiting the target stores fell for nine weeks in a row since the retailer triggered a customer boycott with January declaration indicating He fell from the diversity initiatives he had long promoted, the data from the analysis society place.
On the other hand, attendance continued to grow in Costco, which fought a proposal from shareholders aimed at undermining its diversity and inclusion initiatives.
The correlation is of course not causal. Many other factors could explain the difference.
The Target trust and sympathy score – a main measure of reputation – has dropped a hollow of four years in the first quarter of this year, estimates that the caliber market intelligence company. But the caliber surveys which are based on the fact that it continues a downward trend that has started years before the Target diversity retirement.
Also, caliber research Out of 10 large American companies, including Target, Walmart and Apple indicates that most have had little or no change in their trust scores compared to the last quarter of 2024, whether they abandoned or defended diversity measures.
But employee confidence is another matter.
Consider the hundreds of partners in some of the largest law firms in the world who have signed a open letter condemning targeting by the administration of the companies to which it is opposed.
Imagine what they felt when some of their companies then sold, committing millions From dollars to professional services to the causes approved by the administration – a decision that seems to have surprised the president even.
Companies say, “Where do I sign?” Where should I sign? ” Asset amazed At the White House last month. “No one can believe it.”
Maybe. History suggests that companies are rarely at the forefront of political resistance, regardless of the height of the issues.
Dutch journalist David de Jong says that, during the years of research, he did for his book in 2022 BillionairesHe has only encountered two examples of large industrialists or companies defying Nazi Germany. Robert Bosch, founder of the Group Eponymous Engineering and Technology, and the Steel Magnat Fritz Thyssen.
Charles Hecker’s book in 2024 Zero sum Offers another lesson on foreign companies that have continued to do business in an increasingly authoritarian Russia.
In a revealing example, a higher European framework reveals that the headquarters of these companies “stirred the fingers” of Moscow illegal Annexation of Crimea 2014, while urging their Russian offices to stimulate sales next year.
The United States of 2025 is not Russia in 2014, not to mention Germany in the 1930s.
All the same, any American company which complies with a determined administration both determined to put its opponents in Talon follows a familiar path.