In 2017, schedules of Trump’s first pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency revealed that he held gatherings almost daily with oil lobbyists, car-company heads and other industry leaders, while systematically tuning out environmental advocates. Conflicts & timidity on regulation have continued under the current director, a former lobbyist for a coal producer and a uranium mining firm.
President’s first secretary of the interior, Ryan Zinke, quit amid a probe into whether a land deal he’d struck with the chairman of Halliburton. Trump’s current secretary of the interior has been a consistent conduit for those industries’ interests.
Trump’s Department of Agriculture, led by an industry cheerleader in Sonny Perdue, maintains tight ties with the businesses it regulates, prioritizing their wants over customer’s need to be protected.
The list goes on and on, and was most egregiously manifest in Trump’s 2017 tax law, a grab bag of giveaways for corporations.
Sure, Trump has a running war with Amazon and ongoing gripes with other big tech concerns. He opposes some corporate-backed immigration and trade priorities.
But the rule in this White House remains: corporate America first.