DowDuPont Sees ‘Amazing’ Trump Effect on Negotiations Overseas

• January 23 2018
• Jack Kaskey

President Donald Trump’s approach to international trade is giving U.S. companies an unexpected boost when they negotiate overseas deals, according to DowDuPont Co. Chairman Andrew Liveris.

President Donald Trump’s approach to international trade is giving U.S. companies an unexpected boost when they negotiate overseas deals, according to DowDuPont Co. Chairman Andrew Liveris.

In what he called “a paradigm shift,” U.S. companies suddenly have leverage when negotiating with foreign countries, Liveris said Tuesday on a webcast panel from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. That’s because nations now are concerned that if they don’t give an American corporation “a shot,” their companies could be denied opportunities in the U.S., he said.

“It’s had an unintended consequence, which is actually amazing,” Liveris said. “And maybe that, at the end of the day, is President Trump’s strategy.”

Trump abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership and has started renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, excoriating such multilateral deals as unfair to the U.S. On Monday, he slapped tariffs on imported solar panels and washing machines, saying he wanted to level a playing field that was tilted against American companies.