The boardroom used to be a sanctuary from the rough-and tumble of partisan Washington. Those days are ending fast. In President Trump's second term, policy is no longer a background hum; it is a drumbeat, and corporate America is relearning how to march to it.
It helps to start with the tone. Journalists and lobbyists have even borrowed an old Cold War analogy — one FT headline put it bluntly: 'Maga has gone Maoist' — to capture the sense that Washington is reasserting direct control over whole swathes of the economy. That rhetoric is dramatic, but the mechanics are straightforward: tariffs, export controls, supply-chain incentives, and targeted industrial policy are being wielded aggressively and quickly. For many executives, the question has shifted from 'how do we influence policy?' to 'how do we survive it?'
A new tempo: decisions made fast, implemented faster
White House veterans and advisers say this administration is past the policy-exploration phase. Where earlier governments might have debated options for months, the current team moves from decision to execution with unusual speed. That matters because it changes how influence is won: access to the president is useful, but influence over the rule-makers — the mid-level civil servants and agency desks writing the regulations — is now often decisive.
That dynamic explains why CEO responses have been muted and cautious. Reuters reported that corporate pushback so far has been polite and incremental rather than theatrical. Public condemnation risks alienating officials who now hold the levers of trade, investment screening and export licensing. Quiet lobbying, legal challenges, and operational shifts look more common than public denunciations.
Executives are adapting in three overlapping ways. First, they are re-mapping risk: supply chains, market access, and compliance costs are being re-priced into corporate plans. Second, they are changing how they engage: instead of grand overtures for access, companies are sending technical teams to trade agencies and department rule-writers with concrete, implementable fixes. Third, some are repositioning operations — reshoring components, carving out China-specific business units, or accelerating investment in friendly jurisdictions.
Those moves are costly and slow, and not every company can pivot quickly. Smaller suppliers and firms with deep sales in markets targeted by US policy face the sharpest squeeze.
The tech sector is in a particularly awkward spot. New export controls, scrutiny of AI models and cloud supply chains, and an emphasis on domestic infrastructure place technology firms in the crosshairs of both national-security and industrial-policy aims. Firms are being asked to partner with government initiatives even as regulators scrutinize their market power and data practices. That clash of priorities — cooperation on strategic projects while being examined for competition and privacy concerns — is a novel headache for many CEOs. Some of these tensions touch on issues like federal cloud infrastructure and data-centre strategy, which intersect with initiatives such as Project Suncatcher and the race to control the next-generation backbone.
AI companies are likewise navigating new terrain. The administration's appetite for technological advantage raises questions about model access, data governance, and commercial partnerships. Meanwhile, large platform players are experimenting with enterprise integrations and new model deployments, an environment described in recent reporting on how firms are plugging advanced AI into productivity products like Gemini Deep Research and enterprise voice assistants. Even corporate product choices — think of major consumer firms deciding whether to adopt a particular large model — now carry geopolitical and regulatory freight, as when Apple reportedly chose to use a custom Google Gemini model for a next-gen assistant.
How businesses are being advised to respond
Former administration officials and lobbyists have been blunt: adapt or be sidelined. Practical counsel shared inside C-suites includes four core points: map who will write the rules and cultivate those relationships; bring solutions, not arguments; assume the administration will use the full toolbox of policy levers; and focus engagement on execution details like timelines, compliance costs and operational trade-offs.
That advice is pragmatic rather than partisan. For companies that move early and offer workable alternatives, there is still influence to be had. For those that wait for post-facto concessions, the risk is that binding rules and incentives are already in place.
There are costs beyond compliance. The political optics of cooperation matter — some CEOs worry about alienating customers or employees by being perceived as too cozy with a combative Washington. Others calculate that survival requires pragmatism: accepting a more muscular state role in return for stable supply lines, subsidies, or market protections.
The result is a new playbook for corporate strategy that blends traditional lobbying with operational contingency planning and public relations choreography. CEOs now have to be policy tacticians as much as business leaders.
The spectacle — gold watches on TV and robust rhetoric on talk shows — may grab headlines. But the harder story is lower down: legal memos being reworked, factories retooled, contract clauses rewritten, and lawyers tracking leverage points inside agencies. Those are the motions that will ultimately decide which companies thrive in an era when the state has stepped back into the driver’s seat.
CEOs who thought their toughest battles were with competitors or markets are discovering a more complex opponent: policy that moves fast, hits deep, and expects industry to fall in line or provide the fixes. How corporate America responds will reshape investment, trade relationships and the contours of US capitalism for years to come.