Wal-Mart CEO Criticizes Trump's Virginia Response
August 15 2017 - 5:59PM
Dow Jones News
By Michelle Ma
Two more members of President Donald Trump's manufacturing
advisory council said Tuesday they would resign, while the leader
of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. criticized the president for his initial
response to the weekend violence in Charlottesville, Va.
Mario Longhi, the former CEO of U.S. Steel, and Scott Paul, the
president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a nonprofit
group formed by manufacturers and the United Steelworkers union,
both said they were resigning.
Mr. Paul said he was quitting the council "because it's the
right thing for me to do."
U.S. Steel said Mr. Longhi had resigned but refused to comment
further.
The men joined other corporate chiefs who have left the council
in apparent protest of the president's failure to quickly condemn
the white supremacists who engaged in violence over the weekend in
Charlottesville. On Monday, Mr. Trump denounced the hate
groups.
The other CEOs who stepped down -- on Monday -- were the heads
of Merck & Co., Intel Corp. and Under Armour Inc.
They drew attacks from Mr. Trump, who indicated he had other
executives with whom he could fill the slots.
"For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I
have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone
on," Mr. Trump tweeted Tuesday.
Wal-Mart chief Doug McMillon, who is on another White House
advisory council, criticized Mr. Trump's initial response to the
violence but said, "we believe we should stay engaged."
"As we watched the events and the response from President Trump
over the weekend," Mr. McMillon wrote Monday in a memo to staff,
"we too felt that he missed a critical opportunity to help bring
our country together by unequivocally rejecting the appalling
actions of white supremacists."
Alex Gorsky, the head of Johnson & Johnson, who said he
would remain on the advisory council, said he respected other chief
executives' decisions to leave it, but he decided to remain engaged
"not as a way to support any specific political agenda" but to
advocate for the company's positions when public policy is
discussed.
"Ours is an important voice on health care, one that global
leaders at every level, in and out of government, need to hear,"
Mr. Gorsky said in a statement Tuesday. "We must engage if we hope
to change the world and those who lead it."
Most companies that responded to requests for comment on Tuesday
said their leaders would continue to serve on the manufacturing
council, including Boeing Co., Campbell Soup Co., International
Paper Co. and Newell Brands Inc. General Electric Co. said Monday
that chairman Jeff Immelt would stay on as well.
Mr. Paul didn't explain his decision, and his staff said he
wasn't available for comment. Mr. Paul had been supportive of Mr.
Trump's efforts to revamp free-trade deals and curb imports of
foreign-made steel, but the manufacturing alliance lately
criticized the administration's slow progress on those efforts.
Mr. Paul and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka were two of the
few representatives on the council from organized labor. Mr. Trumka
said his group is "assessing our role" on the council. "There are
real questions into the effectiveness of this council to deliver
real policy that lifts working families," he said.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 15, 2017 17:44 ET (21:44 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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