Donald Trump struggled at times during his first term to boost U.S. international investment, but as the president-elect prepares to return to the White House, the Republican is apparently getting creative in exploring possible new solutions.
“Any person or company that invests ONE BILLION DOLLARS OR MORE in the United States of America will receive fully expedited approvals and permits,” Trump wrote in a message published on his social media platform. He added in the same message that this would mean waiving “all environmental approvals” for such investors.
He concluded, “Get ready to rock!!!”
In other words, as Trump sees it, there are international entities that may be inclined to invest in new business opportunities in the United States, but may not want to deal with inconvenient public safeguards like the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act. . As for the incoming US president, he can reassure them by stating in writing that these foreign investors will be able to do whatever they want as long as they provide the capital.
Such an approach, the Republican apparently believes, will help the country “ROCK!!!” during his second term.
Conspiratorial billionaire Elon Musk, who helps run Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), described the president-elect’s message as “great.”
It’s fair to say that an administrative policy along these lines could very well be “great” for wealthy interest groups like Musk, who may find regulations such as pollution controls burdensome to their bottom line, but whether ordinary people – the people who have to deal with them would face the consequences of ignored public safety measures – finding this “great” is another matter entirely.
It’s also reminiscent of reporting from the spring, when Trump gathered at Mar-a-Lago with some of the country’s top oil executives, who complained about “burdensome” environmental protections. According to The Washington Post’s report, which was not independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, the then-Republican candidate said executives needed to raise $1 billion to return him to the White House.
If so, the article added, Trump promised his guests that he would “immediately roll back dozens of President Biden’s environmental regulations and policies and prevent new ones from being implemented.”
But just as important is the fact that presidents cannot simply snap their fingers and unilaterally eliminate public safeguards for billion-dollar investors. As The Washington Post’s Philip Bump explained in his latest analysis:
Such a great idea that you may wonder why it has never been done before. And the answer (as is often the case when Musk embraces some insight into how government works) is that it’s more complicated than it seems. There are many laws that a president cannot simply circumvent, and there are some very good reasons why those laws are there. For example, given their druthers, some business leaders would completely ignore environmental regulations if they made money from it. Good for companies, but not necessarily great for the citizens for whom the government is intended.
If Trump believes his country’s environmental laws are flawed and hindering necessary business development, he and his team can roll up their sleeves, do some unglamorous policy work, take their case to the public and their representatives, and try to get those laws changed .
But he doesn’t want that. As Bump’s analysis shows, the newly elected president does not seem to believe he should be encumbered by such a process.
“He sees a bureaucracy that limits how and where businesses can operate and – operating from a business owner’s point of view and in the absence of good advisors empowered to provide a counterbalance – insists that he will simply make it all disappear ,” the analysis said. concluded.
When we talk about Trump’s authoritarian vision, we’re not just talking about his hostility to elections, voting, and resolving disagreements at the ballot box (as important as that attitude is). Just as remarkable is the Republican’s view that policymaking power should be consolidated in the Oval Office and shaped entirely by his uninformed whims and preferences.
That is not the way the slow and often difficult process of policymaking in the United States is designed. It seems that the president-elect, who has never shown the slightest interest in governing responsibly, simply doesn’t care.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
