President-elect Donald Trump's unexpected win Tuesday night served up a large dose of uncertainty for U.S. businesses with rumors of updated trade pacts and crackdowns on overseas manufacturing operations circling his campaign platform.
Throughout his campaign, Mr. Trump expressed a critical view of global trade, including treaties like the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership — a trade agreement to lower or eliminate tariffs between the U.S. and 11 other countries, reported The Wall Street Journal.
Efforts by a Trump administration to create new trade agreements could impact large businesses — like General Electric Co. and Caterpillar — who support free trade as a means to access overseas markets, according to the report. Mr. Trump has also criticized companies like Ford Motor Co. and United Technologies for moving jobs and operations overseas, WSJ reports.
China, one of America's biggest trading partners, is also under fire from the president- elect. Mr. Trump has said he will instruct the U.S. Trade Representative to initiate trade cases against the Chinese for allegedly using unfair subsidies to help their companies, WSJ reports. Tension with China could bring issues for companies like Apple and Procter & Gamble, which use Chinese factories to manufacture many of their products and rely on consumers to buy them.
During a business-school commencement address in May, General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt said companies should react to the growing call for policies to restrict international trade by manufacturing more goods closer to where they will be bought to reduce exports, among other strategies, according to the report.
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