One of Donald Trump's big campaign promises was that he would use his business genius to run the country like a private company, bringing his “Art of the Deal”-style negotiating skills to the White House. One month in to this grand experiment, the results appear decidedly mixed. While Trump’s presidency has been great for the Trump Organization and, to a lesser extent, for the banks whose alumni compose the Trump administration, others in the private sector are growing decidedly weary of the real-estate billionaire’s idiosyncratic approach. For every group of chief executives he hauls into the Oval Office for photo-ops and pronouncements about corporate tax reform (coming any day now), the president also seems to fire off a half-dozen market-shaking tweets, threatening companies like Toyota and General Motors with crippling taxes for doing business overseas. When he’s not vowing to destroy the regulatory state, he’s unsettling allies by shouting “Mexico will pay for the wall!” over and over again, despite Mexico repeatedly reminding him that it will do no such thing.
In addition to the auto industry, one of the companies that’s been caught in Trump’s crosshairs is Lockheed Martin, whose F-35 fighter jet, the 45th president decided before taking office, was too pricey. “Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet!” he tweeted last December. The social-media missive cratered Lockheed’s stock in after-hours trading while boosting Boeing’s. Now, according to Bloomberg, Trump is moving ahead with plans to renegotiate the decade-old program, even if it means letting Boeing C.E.O. Dennis Muilenburg listen in on a call discussing the F-35, without announcing Muilenburg’s presence to the person on the other line:
Trump, who has repeatedly criticized the $379 billion F-35 program as “out of control,” made the highly unusual calls to Lieutenant General Chris Bogdan on January 9 and January 17, according to two people familiar with the matter. Muilenburg, whose company makes a fighter jet Trump has suggested might replace one F-35 model, was in the president-elect’s New York office for a meeting during the second call. He appeared caught off-guard but heard at least Trump’s end of the call, according to the people, who asked to remain anonymous discussing sensitive information.
After speaking with Trump, Bogdan wrote two three-page memos, titled “Phone Conversations with President-Elect,” dated January 10 and January 18, and stamped “For Official Use Only,” to limit distribution. They outlined Trump’s questions about the capabilities of Boeing’s Super Hornet fighter and how it might compete against Lockheed’s F-35C, said the people.
After leaving Trump’s office on the 17th, Muilenburg told reporters that he thought they’d “made some great progress” in their discussions.
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