Sustainable Finance Newsletter - US Chamber looks for nonpartisan path with Trump

Canadian Pacific Kansas City

03/09/2025 17:49

By Ross Kerber

Sept 3 (Reuters) -
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When business leaders accepted, and in some cases backed, Donald Trump in his successful 2024 U.S. presidential campaign, they seemed to bet his agenda of tax cuts and regulatory relief would offset any pressure he might bring on individual companies.

Some may be rethinking their calculus now as Trump takes unprecedented economic steps like making the U.S. government the largest shareholder in Intel INTC.O and pressuring the Fed to cut rates. Several analysts told me the best response would be for executives to band together and push back on Trump with one voice.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has a different vision, its top policy officer, Neil Bradley, told me in an interview published earlier on Wednesday. Washington's largest business lobby instead is picking its battles and looking to keep its approach nonpartisan, Bradley said.

You can read my interview with Bradley and his reaction to the critique in my column this week. You'll also see stories about the upheaval at Nestle NESN.S  over an undisclosed romantic relationship, and a look at European investor skepticism about executive pay.

Please follow me on LinkedIn and/or Bluesky. You can reach me via ross.kerber@thomsonreuters.com

Top US business lobby tries a nonpartisan path with Trump

Here are some key points from my interview with U.S. Chamber of Commerce official Neil Bradley:

On Trump's deal for a 9.9% stake in Intel: "There's a lot of issues at play here. The biggest thing we hear and the biggest question we have is, what are the rules? It's highly unusual for the government to take an equity stake."

On Trump's pressure on the Fed: "The Chamber has a long history of defending Fed independence when it comes to monetary policy. (Bradley wrote this blog post in July). That was very much in the (United States) founders' minds, a strain of thought of trying to insulate questions of the valuation of money."

Q: Are we in a constitutional crisis moment?

A: "What we try to do is speak within the areas where we have expertise and a remit to comment on those particular things. Rounding it all up is when arguments tend to become unpersuasive."

You can click here to read the full interview that ran in my column this morning.

COMPANY NEWS

Nestle faces a leadership crisis after firing its CEO just a year into the job for concealing a romantic relationship with a subordinate.

It looks less likely that the tie-up between Union Pacific UNP.N and Norfolk Southern NSC.N will lead to more railroad mergers, after Canadian Pacific Kansas City CP.TO and Warren Buffett's BNSF Railway publicly rejected near-term consolidation.

Fresh fruit produce suppliers to Germany grocer ALDI face civil proceedings by an Australian regulator which has alleged they engaged in price-fixing.

ON MY RADAR

The share of major European companies facing significant opposition to their pay plans rose nearly a quarter this year, with analysts citing stock awards that vest too early and insufficient stockholding requirements.

Differences over sustainability are causing Dutch pension fund PFZW to reduce its ties to BlackRock BLK.N, my colleagues reported on Wednesday, a reminder of the challenges the top asset manager still faces in balancing the wishes of its global client base.

A U.S. federal appeals court ruled Trump's administration can terminate more than $16 billion in grants to nonprofit groups to fight climate change.

(Reporting by Ross Kerber in Boston
Editing by Matthew Lewis)

((ross.kerber@thomsonreuters.com; (617) 412 0093;))