Trump’s ‘Made In America Week’ Inadvertently Highlights Corporate Welfare

Even as a centerpiece of his policy agenda—the repeal and replace of Obamacare—was going down in flames in the Senate, President Donald Trump appeared to be having fun.

He donned a white Stetson hat. He climbed into the cab of a bright red fire truck parked on the White House lawn. He swung a golf club and admired a baseball bat.

It was a made-for-TV moment—”Made In America Week,” the White House’s celebration of domestic manufacturing—but it wasn’t all for show. Trump was promising to implement policies, like a new tax on foreign-made goods and a restructuring of the North American Free Trade Agreement, that will help some companies based in America even as they hurt other businesses and consumers.

Trump, surrounded by props large and small, promised he was fighting for a “level playing field” for American-made products. “But,” he said, “if the playing field were slanted a little bit towards us, I’d accept that also.”
As it turns out, some of the businesses invited to the White House this week already have the playing field slanted—in some cases quite dramatically—in their direction.

A Reason review of the 50 businesses invited to Trump’s “Made in America” event reveals that 21 of them have received some form of government grant, subsidy, loan guarantee, or other economic incentive since 1997, according to records aggregated by Good Jobs First, a union-funded nonprofit that opposes corporate welfare.