Shut up, or suck up? How CEOs are dealing with Donald Trump

IN ORDER TO grasp corporate America’s conflicted feelings towards Donald Trump a year after his election, one Wall Street boss proposes the following thought experiment. Imagine you fell asleep on November 6th 2024, the day after his victory over Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, and woke up today.

为了理解特朗普当选一年后美国企业界的矛盾心理，一位华尔街大佬提出了这样一个思想实验：想象你在2024年11月6日——也就是他战胜民主党对手卡玛拉·哈里斯的次日——睡着了，直到今天才醒来。

A snapshot of the world looks pretty much as you would have expected it to—which is to say glorious. American GDP outgrowing the rest of the rich world? Check. Corporate-tax cuts? Check. Wall Street types in charge of treasury and commerce departments? Check. The de facto average tariff rate for goods of 10% is, admittedly, a shade higher than you thought. But then so is the S&P 500, which despite a wobble in recent days is beating analysts’ forecasts from 12 months ago, thanks to the artificial-intelligence boom. With trustbuster-in-chief Joe Biden out of the White House, “merger Mondays” are back; one week this month began with the announcement of three mega-deals worth a combined $70bn. The Federal Reserve has, as predicted, lowered interest rates. Most important, profits are up—and then some.

世界的现状看起来和你预期的差不多——甚至可以说是形势大好。美国GDP增速超过其他富裕国家？没错。企业减税？没错。华尔街人士掌管财政部和商务部？没错。诚然，实际上10%的商品平均关税税率比你预想的略高。但标普500指数也同样高出预期，尽管近日有所波动，但得益于人工智能热潮，仍跑赢了分析师一年前的预测。随着“首席反垄断官”乔·拜登离开白宫，“并购周一”又回来了；本月某周伊始就宣布了三笔总价值达700亿美元的巨额交易。美联储也如期降息。最重要的是，利润不仅上涨——而且涨势喜人。

When you learn how things got to where they are, though, you rub your eyes. The president raised import duties in April on most of America’s trading partners, then moved them up and down in ways that were hard to fathom. The S&P 500’s ascent from some $50trn in aggregate market value on November 5th 2024 to $60trn or so now included a $7trn tumble between election day and the start of his trade war. He has tried to sack a Fed governor (unsuccessfully so far), get private companies like Intel and Microsoft to fire executives he disapproves of (likewise), and force individual law firms he dislikes to take up MAGA causes pro bono (many succumbed). Things get more shocking still: the state holds a “golden share” in US Steel (now in Japanese hands), owns stakes in a bunch of rare-earth miners plus 10% of Intel, a struggling chipmaker, and wants a 15% cut of Nvidia’s and AMD’s chip sales to China.

然而，当你了解到这一切是如何发生的时，你会惊讶得揉揉眼睛。总统在4月提高了对大多数美国贸易伙伴的进口关税，随后又以令人难以捉摸的方式反复调整。标普500指数的总市值从2024年11月5日的约50万亿美元攀升至如今的约60万亿美元，其间在选举日和贸易战开始之间曾暴跌7万亿美元。他曾试图解雇一名美联储理事（迄今未果），试图让英特尔和微软等私营公司解雇他不满的高管（同样未果），并强迫他不喜欢的个别律师事务所无偿代理MAGA诉讼（许多律所屈服了）。更令人震惊的是：国家在（现已归日本所有的）美国钢铁公司持有“黄金股”，拥有一批稀土矿商的股份，且持有英特尔这家苦苦挣扎的芯片制造商10%的股份；它还想从英伟达和AMD对华芯片销售中抽取15%的分成。

At this point you pity the chief executives who have had to stay awake through it all, enduring what a conservative lobbyist likens to “riding a roller-coaster in the dark”. As with a theme-park ride, dealing with Mr Trump and his unconventional administration requires a sturdy stomach and a hard head. It also requires a strategy. The one most companies have adopted can be summed up as shut up, suck up and think twice before standing up to the president.

此时此刻，你不禁同情那些不得不全程保持清醒的首席执行官们，他们忍受着一位保守派游说者所形容的“在黑暗中坐过山车”般的折磨。就像在游乐园坐过山车一样，与特朗普及其非传统政府打交道需要强大的心理承受力和冷静的头脑。还需要策略。大多数公司采取的策略可以概括为：闭嘴，讨好，在反抗总统前三思。

Many businesses’ main political objective is to stay “out of the cross-hairs”, in the words of an investment banker. American shoppers are grumpy in surveys but spendthrift in stores. “The worst-case scenario for tariffs keeps getting better,” says a Wall Street rainmaker. Companies feel they will do just fine so long as they do not give the president a reason to single them out—certainly for punishment but also for praise, which a misstep can turn into censure.

用一位投资银行家的话说，许多企业的主要政治目标是“别被盯上”。美国消费者在调查中怨声载道，在商店里却挥金如土。“关税的最坏情况在不断好转，”一位华尔街呼风唤雨的人物说。公司觉得只要不给总统理由把它们单独拎出来——当然是为了避免惩罚，但也包括表扬，因为稍有不慎表扬就会变成责难——它们就能过得不错。

When Elon Musk fell out with the president in June, Mr Trump went from being Tesla’s chief salesman, at one point turning the White House into its dealership, to threatening to strip it of federal subsidies. Similarly, having defended Apple against EU regulators in January, by May Mr Trump was warning of a 25% tariff on iPhones after the company said it would assemble more of them in India rather than at home.

当埃隆·马斯克在6月与总统闹翻时，特朗普从特斯拉的首席推销员（一度把白宫变成了特斯拉的经销店），转变为威胁要剥夺其联邦补贴。同样，在1月曾捍卫苹果对抗欧盟监管机构的特朗普，到了5月，在该公司表示将在印度而非美国组装更多iPhone后，便警告要对其征收25%的关税。

Ballroom tango

宴会厅探戈

If invisibility is not an option, either because a firm is too large, too prominent or too tariff-prone, it can try ingratiation. This can be comical, as when Tim Cook of Apple presented Mr Trump with a gold trinket in August to commemorate an additional $100bn investment in its American business. It can be cringeworthy, as when Mr Cook’s firm joined at least 20 others, from four of its big-tech rivals to old-economy stalwarts such Union Pacific Railroad, in donating to Mr Trump’s $300m White House ballroom. As it happens, Union Pacific and another railway, Norfolk Southern, are seeking an $85bn merger, which was approved by shareholders on November 14th and needs the thumbs-up from a federal regulator.

如果无法隐身，不管是由于公司太大、太显眼还是太容易受关税影响，那就只能尝试讨好。这可能很滑稽，比如苹果的蒂姆·库克（Tim Cook）在8月送给特朗普一个小金饰，以纪念该公司在美国业务追加的1000亿美元投资。这可能很令人尴尬，比如库克的公司加入了至少20家企业的行列——包括其四个大型科技竞争对手以及联合太平洋铁路（Union Pacific Railroad）等旧经济中坚力量——为特朗普耗资3亿美元的白宫宴会厅捐款。巧的是，联合太平洋铁路正寻求与另一家铁路公司诺福克南方铁路（Norfolk Southern）进行850亿美元的合并，该交易已于11月14日获股东批准，尚需联邦监管机构首肯。

Some of the ballroom donors’ bosses abhorred buttering the president up this way. But, a financier recalls hearing from one who felt icky, “It is what it is.” Sucking up is a part of life for CEOs. JPMorgan Chase, America’s biggest bank, whose chief executive declined to donate to the ballroom lest it be perceived as “buying favours”, has vowed to channel $1.5trn into promoting “security and resiliency”, a Trumpian priority. Under Mr Biden, it pledged $2.5trn in climate-friendly investments dear to Democrats’ hearts.

一些宴会厅捐赠企业的老板厌恶这种拍总统马屁的方式。但据一位金融家回忆，他曾从一位对此感到恶心的老板那里听到这样的话：“生活就是这样。”讨好是CEO生活的一部分。美国最大的银行摩根大通的首席执行官拒绝为宴会厅捐款，以免被视为“购买恩惠”，但该行已承诺投入1.5万亿美元用于促进“安全与韧性”，这是特朗普的优先事项。在拜登任内，它曾承诺投入2.5万亿美元用于民主党人钟爱的气候友好型投资。

Supplication is often subtler. A veteran corporate lawyer in New York advises clients with an eye-catching merger in the works to inform the White House well in advance of any announcement. Springing a surprise may allow a rival to lobby against it. The need for such forward planning is, the lawyer says, “new”. A financier who supported Mr Trump calls it “nuts”. All actions involving the administration must be similarly deliberate. “The last thing you want is to raise prices while you are down there fighting for exemptions [from tariffs],” says a New York business bigwig.

这种乞求往往更为微妙。纽约一位资深公司律师建议那些正在筹划引人注目并购案的客户，在发布任何公告前很久就要通知白宫。突然发布消息（让白宫措手不及）可能会给竞争对手游说反对的机会。这位律师说，这种前瞻性规划的需求是“新出现的”。一位支持特朗普的金融家称之为“疯狂”。所有涉及政府的行动都必须同样深思熟虑。“你最不想做的事，就是在去华盛顿拼命争取关税豁免的时候涨价，”一位纽约商业巨头说。

Quiet pre-emption is made easier by the fact that, in contrast to the bunker-like Biden White House, this one talks to business constantly. “Speaking publicly is not effective,” notes a Wall Street CEO. He and his peers can talk to the president any time, he says. “We are just not doing it through you [the media].” A counterpart in the health-care industry says that every time he asked for access to Mr Trump, “I got it within a day.” What does he tell the president once he gets him on the line? “I try not to bring him my problems, but bring him a solution—a solution he will like and that will solve my problem.”

与像地堡般封闭的拜登白宫相比，本届白宫经常与商界对话，这使得悄悄先发制人变得更容易。“公开发声并不有效，”一位华尔街CEO指出。他说，他和同行可以随时与总统对话。“我们只是不通过你们[媒体]来做这件事。”一位医疗保健行业的同行说，每次他要求见特朗普，“一天之内就能搞定。”一旦接通总统电话，他会说什么？“我尽量不给他带去我的问题，而是带去一个解决方案——一个他会喜欢并且能解决我问题的方案。”

The concerns—over tariffs, state interventionism, the slow pace of deregulation owing to Mr Trump’s foot-dragging on nominating hundreds of lower-level bureaucrats who can actually unmake the rules—go instead to the relevant cabinet secretary. Most often that means Scott Bessent at the Treasury and Howard Lutnick at Commerce.

至于对关税、国家干预主义以及放松管制步伐缓慢（因为特朗普在提名数百名能实际废除规则的下级官僚方面拖拖拉拉）的担忧，则会转达给相关的内阁部长。这通常意味着财政部的斯科特·贝森特（Scott Bessent）和商务部的霍华德·卢特尼克。

Mr Bessent gets mixed reviews. Some bosses excuse the former hedge-fund manager’s increasingly Trumpy TV appearances as the price to pay for internal clout, which they value. Others believe that, as one puts it, “[his] grovelling is how you lose influence”. The foot-in-mouth Mr Lutnick universally elicits eye-rolls. “The only person [in the administration] I trust to do the right things is Donald Trump,” confesses another New York boss and Democratic donor, “and he has mostly done the right thing” by eventually rowing back on his most harmful ideas. A consumer-goods executive notes that her company prefers a different arms-length route, via Trump-friendly trade unions such as the Teamsters, Mr Trump’s personal friends and his eldest son, Donald junior.

对贝森特先生的评价褒贬不一。一些老板为这位前对冲基金经理在电视上日益特朗普化的表现开脱，认为这是为了获得内部影响力所付出的代价，而他们看重这种影响力。其他人则认为，正如其中一人所言，“（他的）卑躬屈膝正是丧失影响力的原因”。经常失言的卢特尼克则普遍招致白眼。“（在政府中）我唯一信任能做正确事情的人是唐纳德·特朗普，”另一位作为民主党捐助者的纽约老板坦言，“而且他基本上做对了”，因为他最终撤回了其最有害的想法。一位消费品高管指出，她的公司更倾向于通过另一条保持距离的途径，即通过对特朗普友好的工会（如卡车司机工会Teamsters）、特朗普的私人朋友以及他的长子小唐纳德来进行接触。

Taking the administration on is verboten. Most large companies are quietly cheering for the handful of small firms fighting the government in the Supreme Court over Mr Trump’s use of emergency powers to enact his sweeping tariffs. Yet none has submitted a formal brief, as they have historically done in cases of material importance to their operations. A lawsuit against Mr Trump’s new $100,000 fee for H1-B skilled-worker visas was filed by the US Chamber of Commerce, a venerable umbrella group which offers safety in numbers. A finance tycoon would love to see thousands of besuited professionals march on Washington, as lawyers did in Pakistan in the late 2000s in protest against the suspension of the chief justice. But he isn’t holding his breath.

与政府对抗是禁忌。大多数大公司都在暗中为少数几家在最高法院与政府抗争的小公司加油，这些小公司反对特朗普利用紧急权力实施全面关税。然而，没有一家大公司提交正式的法律简报，而在历史上涉及其运营重大利益的案件中，它们通常会这样做。针对特朗普对H1-B技术工人签证征收10万美元新费用的诉讼，是由美国商会（US Chamber of Commerce）提起的，这是一个历史悠久的伞状组织，能提供“法不责众”的安全感。一位金融大亨很希望能看到成千上万身着西装的专业人士向华盛顿进军，就像2000年代末巴基斯坦律师抗议首席大法官被停职那样。但他并不抱此奢望。

Do firms fear reprisals? Absolutely, echoes boss after boss (all of whom asked not to be named). But even more than that, they fear continued unpredictability. Mr Trump and his government “do policy deal by deal”, grumbles one. This leads companies to focus not on building better products but wrangling exemptions, war-gaming responses to government offers you can’t refuse or finding ways to stay off the radar. With another three years of Mr Trump’s presidency to go, they are at least getting the hang of how to go about it.

企业害怕报复吗？老板们（均要求匿名）一个接一个地表示，‘绝对害怕’。但比这更让他们害怕的是持续的不可预测性。一位老板抱怨说，特朗普及其政府“做政策就像做交易一样，一单一单来”。这导致公司不再专注于打造更好的产品，而是忙于争取豁免、推演如何应对政府提出的无法拒绝的提议，或是寻找避开关注的方法。特朗普的总统任期还有三年，至少他们正在慢慢摸索出门道。