CEOs have agreed-upon 'playbook' to stiff-arm Trump: report

16 January

President Donald Trump meets with President Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Thursday, December 4, 2025, in the Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)

As the second year of President Donald Trump's second term is about to begin, corporate CEOs are gradually coalescing around a strategy to both keep the administration at bay while also staying off of the president's revenge list.

In a Friday article for the Financial Times, several corporate executives spoke on how they plan to interact with the Trump administration in 2026. One unnamed "chief executive of a Wall Street bank" told the Financial Times that their company expects a rocky year, and hinted that this fall's elections may provide some relief.

"This year is going to be a very turbulent one until the [November] midterms," the person said. "We are going to have the most activist year of his presidency and we are all ready for it."

"MAGA has gone Maoist. It is state capitalism," Yale University professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld said. "It is not remotely conservative."

The corporate world is particularly uneasy about the Trump administration's recent capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, as well as his increasingly threatening rhetoric about a potential invasion of Greenland. One source described as a "lobbyist with decades of experience advising chief executives dealing with U.S. administrations" anonymously confided to the Financial Times that "standing up to Trump is usually a losing strategy." However, CEOs have slowly discovered a way to placate the administration while still going along with their previous plans.

"Privately, several executives concede they have little appetite for kowtowing to Trump," the Financial Times reported. "But advisers say a pragmatic playbook has emerged: show up, make a promise grand enough to flatter the president, and then do as little as possible until his attention shifts elsewhere."

This strategy may have been deployed as recently as last week, when a group of oil executives met with Trump at the White House to discuss the administration's plans for extracting Venezuela's oil. One unnamed business lobbyist told Politico that many CEOs have an acronym to describe the strategy dubbed "EMPANADA," which stands for "Everyone Makes Promises And Never Actually Does Anything."

Click here to read the Financial Times' report in its entirety (subscription required).

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