Wendy Li writes that business leaders must rediscover past unity and put pressure on politicians to defend against President Donald Trump’s attacks on businesses and civil society and prevent democratic backsliding.
The past three months have been a political rollercoaster for the United States business community. As the Trump Administration guts the federal government, attacks universities and law firms, and flip flops on its tariff policy, we are in a moment of unprecedented economic uncertainty. But while many have spoken up against the tariffs, the business community has been surprisingly silent on the fundamental threats that the Trump Administration has posed to investment, research and development, supply chains, and the rule of law. Their silence demonstrates that American business interests have never been politically weaker.
This might seem counterintuitive—after all, CEOs surrounded Trump at his inauguration, and corporate leaders, including tech moguls, investment bankers, crypto lobbyists, and oil executives, have assumed roles across his administration. Businesses are rejoicing at the prospect of tax cuts and deregulation, and have staffed their Washington lobbying teams to cozy up to the Trump Administration for other policy wins.
But rather than clamoring for favors, businesses are instead groveling for mercy. It does not have to be this way. There used to be a day when corporations were able to coordinate, band together, and see beyond their narrow, short-term interests. After World War II, corporations made investments in collective action by funding industry associations, think tanks, and other policy planning organizations in Washington. Groups like the Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable, and the Committee for Economic Development advocated for public investment in education and research, shaped regulatory agencies, and were instrumental to the formation of international economic institutions. Sociologist Mark Mizruchi describes how, amidst a strong state, labor militancy, and the rise of right-wing conservatives, corporate elites positioned themselves as moderate, socially responsible leaders. Business organizations pragmatically lent their support to collective bargaining, welfare programs, and even occasional tax increases. These positions might seem anathema to the business community now, but they show how by forming consensus and defending their shared interests to the public, business groups were a moderating force in U.S. politics.
What happened? Business unity has been declining for over thirty years, and scholars have pointed to a number of reasons, including a weakened labor movement, changes in banking networks, and short-termism spurred by shareholder pressures. At the same time, companies have increasingly decided to go it alone in Washington. There are thousands of corporate lobbying organizations, including large, broad-based groups like the Chamber of Commerce, and industry-level groups representing biotech companies, retailers, banks, steel companies, oil companies, auto manufacturers. If there is an industry, there is a lobbying group representing it. But more and more, companies now hire their own lobbyists in-house or retain consulting, lobbying, public relations, and law firms for short-term contracts. While in 1979, there were about 650 corporations and 2,000 trade associations lobbying in Washington, by 2012, corporations spent $1.85 billion on lobbying compared to $553 million by trade associations. More recently, in the first quarter of the Trump Administration, top K Street lobbying firms have seen surges in lobbying revenue from corporate clients.
In my research, I’ve interviewed dozens of lobbyists across these sectors and organizations. What I hear increasingly from them is that more than lobbying policymakers or other advocacy groups, they are fighting with each other.
“Every year, my office has a budget [for business associations],” a lobbyist for a Fortune 50 company shared with me. “And we say, where are we going to play? Because sometimes, you want to stay in just for defensive purposes. To keep that association from doing things you don’t want to do.”
While associations can channel collective interests and give companies political cover, they also need to balance the interests of all their members—the larger the membership, the more difficult it is to find consensus. Rather than compromise and find common ground, for associations, the path of least resistance is to stay silent.
As a result, to influence Washington, companies have increasingly acted unilaterally and quietly, or through coalitions that represent more narrow, particularistic interests. As companies scramble to assess what additional tariffs would do to their supply chain, or how cuts to the National Institutes of Health and research universities would cripple their R&D pipeline, they turn to individual lobbying firms to seek exemptions and discretionary mercy. Even the Chamber of Commerce has decided against challenging Trump’s tariffs in court, instead encouraging companies to lobby for exemptions. So it’s every company for themselves. In these conditions, there is no such thing as a level playing field or a competitive market.
Many, including myself, have decried the role of corporations in politics, arguing that corporate lobbying promotes regulatory capture, increases economic inequality, and undermines democratic engagement. However, many of these ills of corporate lobbying are also tied to the fracturing of corporate politics and the pursuit of narrow policy wins and rent-seeking over broad-based interests. What would it look like for business organizations to serve as sites for deliberation, consensus-building, and collective action again?
Alongside attacks on academic freedom, pluralism, and civil liberties, we are at risk of backsliding into authoritarian rule. It is time for the business community to return to their civic roots and join the broad-based movement of workers, civil society organizations, universities, scientists, and law firms in defense of the rule of law. And there is evidence that this kind of business mobilization can work. As political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt write, when civil society and business mobilized together, they successfully pushed back against recent authoritarian threats in Germany and Brazil.
Although the business community is politically fractured, the infrastructure for collective action remains. Corporate leaders can leverage their political donations and demand that members of Congress exercise their Article I powers to check the president. Companies can use leadership positions and membership dues in industry associations to articulate shared interests and push for a unified, public response. Revolving door lobbyists who have personal connections with administration officials, members of Congress, and other corporate lobbyists can be an effective source of peer pressure.
If they can come together, the business community has the capacity to amplify and surround the Trump administration with a resounding rebuke of their authoritarian policies, which threaten not just the American economy, but the lives of everyday people, and the foundations of American democracy.
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