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WASHINGTON – Two years ago, some of the biggest US companies were developing their corporate plans to welcome President Trump, fearing they could send their shareholders and their fleeing customers with a tweet. Now they have a new strategy: ignore it.
This week, General Motors became the last recipient of the a blocade tweets Trump, unhappy with the company's closure of a plant in Lordstown, Ohio. The president asked the company to reopen the plant or sell it "quickly" to someone who would do it. He suggested that GM close a factory in China or Mexico instead.
"What's going on with General Motors?" Said Mr Trump on Wednesday during a speech in front of a tank factory in Lima, Ohio. "Have this plant open or sell it to someone and they will open it."
G.M. did not move. After Tweets from Mr. Trump during the weekend, the company issued a short statement stating that it was relocating workers and would discuss plant closures with the United Auto Workers union. He made no mention of Mr. Trump's requests. In the past, G. M. has accused the president's trade war, including tariffs on steel and aluminum, of increasing society's costs.
"Companies are balancing political pressure against their own return requirements," said Philippe Houchois, an automotive analyst at Jefferies. "I do not think they're influenced."
When Mr. Trump was a presidential candidate, he promised to personally prevent American companies from closing factories and moving factories abroad, announcing that he would punish them with public measures and higher taxes. Many companies have struggled to respond to his attacks on Twitter, announcing jobs and investments in the United States – many of which have never materialized.
Despite Trump's efforts to force companies to build and hire, they seem to be placing more and more emphasis on the priority of their balance sheets at the expense of political reactions.
"I do not think there is so much fear," said Gene Grabowski, crisis communications specialist for public relations firm Kglobal. "At first it was a shock to the system, but now we are all adjusted. We take the situation lightly and I think that's what the business world does. "
Early on, Mr. Trump's ability to direct outrage against businesses seemed to work. Even before Mr. Trump took office, Carrier agreed to retain 1,000 jobs in Indiana and planned to settle in Mexico. In 2017, Ford canceled its plans to build a new plant in Mexico and increased its investment in a self-driving car plant in Michigan. Last year, Pfizer delayed Trump's demand-driven price increase after vaguely threatening to take action against the industry's pricing policies.
More recently, this influence has faded. The president's scattershot attention has reduced his power to persuade the business community to comply with his will, say business communication experts, as dreadful tweet storms have become ephemeral troubles.
At the beginning of Trump's administration, large companies hired companies like Grabowski to develop intervention strategies in the event they were targeted by Trump. His team would be browsing social media to understand the trajectory of Mr. Trump's tweets and the damage they could cause to a brand. In the end, public relations problems were generally short-lived.
"In the beginning, his tweets would actually have negative repercussions on share prices and companies would get down to business," said Eric Dezenhall, a Washington-based expert in corporate damage control. "There is a clinical difference between what was happening at the beginning and what is happening now."
He added, "What's happening now is anger congestion.
This congestion was exposed this week, as Mr. Trump assaulted Facebook, Google, Twitter andSaturday Night Live"Saying that they are biased against Republicans." These explosions on Twitter were interspersed with attacks on political opponents, the investigation of Russia and Senator John McCain, who died last year.
While a tweet from Mr. Trump had the habit of dropping the stock price of a company, analysts say that these days, a missive from the president's Twitter feed simply injects a little noise on the market. Mr. Trump's thoughts on the prospect of a trade deal with China or the Federal Reserve continue to shake investors.
Responding with restraint has been a bit of a reorientation for the public relations sector. The traditional game book often involves reacting directly, quickly and forcefully to bad publicity. However, with regard to Mr Trump, experts say that a discreet response that does not disturb the president more tends to be more effective.
Trump's corporate power began to show signs of slippage last year. After Harley-Davidson announced its intention to transfer part of its production abroad following Trump's trade war, the president had repeatedly said that the company was unfair and urged his supporters, including many drove motorcycles, to consider a boycott. Harley-Davidson officials acknowledged the president's disappointment, but continued their plans.
Another frequent target, Amazon and its managing director, Jeff Bezos, has largely responded to his critics with silence. In 2018, the President accused Amazon of having pulled a "scam" United States Postal Service and convened a working group to find ways to revise the business model of the postal service that would allow it to charge higher rates.
The task force report, released nearly eight months after the complaints, indicated that commercial package delivery to Amazon and other online retailers was actually profitable for the postal service and did not cost the United States "huge amounts of money," as suggested by Mr. Trump in his tweets. Since then, the President has focused his attention on The marital problems of Mr Bezos.
In other cases, the delay was the path of least resistance.
Pfizer agreed last summer to postpone planned price increases after its chief executive, Ian Read, had a "thorough" call with Trump, who said on Twitter that pharmaceutical companies were taking advantage of the poor. In January, however, Pfizer advanced with the price increase of 41 drugs. Mr. Trump lamented on Twitter That month, the pharmaceutical companies were not meeting their price commitments, but they took no action against the sector.
The agreement between Trump and Carrier was also slightly lower than the one announced. If United Technologies, its parent company, agreed to retain its Indianapolis plant in 2016, it has still cut more than 500 manufacturing jobs in 2017 and 2018. A lot of them have been transferred to Mexico. Until now, Mr. Trump has been mom.
And Trump congratulated Ford for investing in Michigan, but after the spotlight shifted, she had doubts about abandoning her investment in Mexico. Instead of canceling its storefront project south of the border, the company announced that it would assemble electric cars, in addition to its investment in Michigan.
For some companies, keeping the promises made to Mr. Trump has become complicated. Foxconn, the Taiwanese giant of the consumer electronics, was congratulated by the president when he announced the construction of a production plant of television screens of a value $ 10 billion in Wisconsin.
In January, Foxconn appeared to cover itself with this commitment, suggesting that it was too expensive to build screens in the United States and that the factory would be less manufacturing-focused than what it had initially suggested. After Mr. Trump had a conversation with the Foxconn president last month, the company said it was going ahead with its plans for the factory, but that only a quarter of the 13,000 people planned to fill the staff would be focused on manufacturing.
Despite Trump's broad media presence and popularity among Republicans, he has not demonstrated his ability to cause lasting damage to a brand that runs through him.
Mr. Houchois, an analyst at Jefferies, said he was not surprised that G.M. was sticking to his plan despite Mr. Trump's dissatisfaction. Broader economic forces, such as falling gas prices and falling demand for small cars, forced the company to abandon the Lordstown plant. And Trump's metal tariffs, combined with the possibility of additional levies on automobiles, have dampened the industry and made automakers less likely to give favors to the president.
"The administration, to a certain extent, has made their lives more difficult," said Mr. Houchois. "They felt aggrieved by some decisions, for example regarding rates, so they are less likely to give in to pressure if they do not think there is a business case."
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