Business leaders have watched with growing frustration as Donald Trump pushed the Republican Party toward a brand of populism that they fear will threaten their bottom line. Now they’re worried about JD Vance.
The Ohio senator represents a new breed of conservative right that is skeptical of corporations and eschews the Republican Party’s old free-trade ideology. And he has done little during his time in office or as a vice presidential candidate to address their concerns.
Vance has consistently targeted big business, expressed antipathy to corporate merger activity, sided with labor and emphasized his support for expensive tariffs. He has spoken positively about the Biden administration’s Federal Trade Commission chairwoman Lina Khan, who is universally seen as a thorn in the side of big business and has forged unlikely alliances with progressives including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts .
With Vance at Trump’s side, some business leaders worry that a second Trump administration would be even more hostile to their interests than the first. Although he would have little agenda-setting power himself, Vance would likely strengthen Trump on key economic issues — trade policy, labor issues, market power — unlike former Vice President Mike Pence, who acted more as a check on Trump’s populist tendencies .
“[Vance] has taken the position that big business, especially some of the big tech ones, is inherently bad,” said William H. Strong, a Republican donor and chief financial officer. “Just because you’re big doesn’t mean you’re bad…I don’t like those broad characterizations he uses to hint that big companies are somehow bad. That’s just not it.”
Vance isn’t just raising concerns among business leaders because of the specific policies he might implement. They also fear Vance would turn the broader party even further away from the pro-business, small-government conservatism that has defined its policies for decades, accelerating years of change.
Gone are the days of the free market approach of Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman.
“That orthodoxy has certainly changed. There’s a lot more of an open discussion about tariffs, there’s a lot more of an open discussion about antitrust, there’s a lot more of a discussion about, for example, calling on the union – ranking union members,” said one partner. at a major investment firm that has given to both Republicans and Democrats and was granted anonymity to speak freely. “That’s a huge change that we’ve seen in the last decade, and Trump has ushered this in… Maybe that’s where the whole party is going.”
While many business leaders and Republican donors still view a Trump administration as better for business than a Harris administration, the Republican Party’s ongoing ideological realignment has made the party increasingly uneasy.
“It’s more of a grin-and-bear-it strategy,” said energy director Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor. “Overall, a Trump administration is better for the economy and better for business. I don’t see people drifting toward the Harris administration, but I see them no longer being a perfect fit for the Republican Party — but it is what they have.”
Some people are particularly concerned about Vance’s isolationist philosophy, Eberhart said. He himself would not have selected Vance as Trump’s next vice president, he said.
Still, the business community had to come to terms with the party’s change, Eberhart said, emphasizing that he was among those “coming to terms with” Vance. He recalled how the Ohio senator had assured some at a fundraiser in Oklahoma City that he would support energy sector drilling.
“The Republican Party’s anti-corporate populist influence is here to stay,” said Justin Sayfie, a Republican business consultant and former appointee during the Trump administration. “JD Vance is the next iteration of that.”
But the party may not be done changing yet.
Corporate America’s relationship with Trump has been fraught since he became a mainstay of national politics in 2016. The business world favors stability, and Trump’s term brought anything but that. Business leaders quickly distanced themselves from him, and those caught in Trump’s crossfire paid a price.
The distance between big business and the Republican Party became even more apparent in 2020. Major corporations embraced principles around diversity, equity and inclusion in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, and Republicans condemned those companies for becoming “woke.” After the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, many major corporations disavowed Republicans who had refused to certify the results of the election, choosing to withhold campaign funds.
But Trump is once again inevitable, and much of corporate America is unsure what to expect from his second term in the White House with a new vice presidential pick.
“Gone are the days of corporate lobbyists controlling Washington through weak, ineffective politicians like Kamala Harris,” Vance spokesman William Martin said in a statement.
Many Republicans — even the former president himself — recognize that a vice president has little real power. But Trump is known for his persuasiveness, and some fear what impact Vance could have on Trump’s positions in a seat with unfettered access.
For those concerned about Trump’s tumultuousness, Pence allayed some of those concerns during the first Trump administration. A Washington insider who previously served as chairman of the House Republican Conference, he was strategic in his run in the Trump White House, working to steer the debate when Trump veered off course.
The fear surrounding Vance is that it is not clear how or if the potential next vice president would determine Trump’s views in such situations, said a Republican lobbyist and alum of the Trump White House.
“The thinking now from the business community is that Vance is not going to block any of Trump’s more populist ideas, so I think that’s the main focus,” the person said, pointing to Vance’s ideas, for example. praise from Khan.
At the helm of the consumer protection agency, Khan has aggressively gone after corporate giants, much to the chagrin of tech giants, grocers and health care companies. Despite pressure to the contrary, it is unclear whether even Kamala Harris, if elected, would keep her on and risk upsetting financial allies.
Vance has praised Khan’s antitrust actions, and the Wall Street Journal editorial board worried that Vance could push Trump to reappoint her. “Do Republicans want to rein in the regulatory state or unleash it?” asked the longtime conservative allies on the Journal’s editorial staff.
Vance has his defenders in the business community. Some point to his time in Silicon Valley as a venture capitalist as evidence of his ties to business leaders. His ties to technology funders have helped the Republican Party forge ties with major donors who had previously given heavily to Democrats. And while Vance has been a populist on certain economic policy issues, there is still widespread belief that he is aligned with Trump’s overall vision of cutting taxes and loosening regulations on big business.
But it can be difficult to determine exactly where Vance stands on key issues. He was one of Trump’s most outspoken critics before becoming one of his most effective attack dogs.
As one media CEO put it, Vance was “quite effective overall” in the vice presidential debate. “Why he acts like a buffoon at other times is a mystery. But at the very least it clearly reflects his vision of what you need to do to appeal to the broader Republican electorate, and of course to Trump himself.”
During Vance’s time in the Senate, the Ohio senator has proven to be an unpredictable troublemaker. He has praised Hungarian authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán and worked with Warren and other Democrats on legislation to punish leaders of major banks if their companies fail.
“You’ve got a guy who you can’t expect to be a solid yes or a solid no when it comes to the kind of shirts-and-skins votes in Congress — what do you think they’ll do if they have the power of the administrative state?” asked a Republican lobbyist. “So I think there’s a lot of fear.”
Amid the corporate realignment and partisanship, the Harris campaign has sought to show support from business leaders and sell itself as a ticket backed by the corporate class. Billionaire entrepreneur and television personality Mark Cuban was one of the campaign’s top emissaries, telling his followers that Harris listens to the business community.
But business leaders are still largely behind the Republican Party. They admit that their fortunes would still be better under a Trump presidency than under a Harris presidency. He has promised to extend his tax bill and lower the corporate tax rate. Despite some concerns among the Republican donor class, Harris is seen as a bigger threat to the company’s bottom line in the short term.
Republican donor Eric Levine, a lawyer who works closely with major corporations, said he hoped some more traditional Republicans would rally around the former president. He would not have picked Vance as vice president and would have preferred “pretty much anyone on that stage” from the Republican primaries. He compared some elements of Vance’s speech at the Republican National Convention to comments that could have been delivered by Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator and progressive champion, saying, “That doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy.” But, Levine argued, Trump’s ticket was still stronger than the alternative.
“I just don’t know who’s going to have his ear this time,” Levine said of Trump. “I’m not a populist, and most people I know are not populists, and we are not isolationists.”
And while they now largely support Republicans, some Republicans said the business community would simply have to come to terms with the changing politics of the time.
“There are people in the Republican Party who want to get back to the pre-2016 mindset. I don’t think it’s possible,” said Jonathan Baron, a Washington-based public affairs consultant.
According to him, the reason should be clear.
“The success of figures as unconventional and new as Donald Trump and JD Vance,” he said, “is the best evidence that change is inevitable.”
