Perhaps former commerce secretary Wilbur Ross could have filled up Alter Hall’s seventh floor regardless. It’s not every day a high-level official from the first Trump administration offers his perspective on the president’s thinking to a roomful of businesspeople, after all.
Yet Ross’s remarks, delivered Wednesday night on Temple’s campus at the first climax of a Trump-ordered trade war that roiled markets and shook even many Republican officeholders loose from the White House’s side, couldn’t have come at a more opportune time.
“People often ask us if we have a crystal ball when we schedule these events,” said World Affairs Council of Philadelphia president and CEO Lauren Swartz to the crowd. “The answer is: Yes.”
Ross, who oversaw the Department of Commerce during President Donald Trump’s first term, was supposed to be in Philadelphia discussing the contents of his recent book, “Risks and Returns: Creating Success in Business and Life.” Despite the self-help sounding title, it’s a memoir, detailing Ross’ six-decade career in the worlds of business and government.
The night’s formatting seemed largely according to plan: Remarks by Fox dean Chip Hunter. An introduction by Swartz. A speech from Ross himself, recounting his work in hedge-funds and company revivals; the acrimonious — his word — haggling over an Atlantic City casino that brought him into Trump’s orbit; and his years in the cabinet. Then, a roundtable with Ross, Swartz and Haverford Trust president Keith Aleardi. Finally, audience questions.
Yet the Weehawken, New Jersey, native’s arrival on campus coincided with the latest dramatic sequence of events in a presidency already full of them: After the Trump administration levied tariffs of at least 10 percent — and often much higher — on imports from every nation-state in the world and some non-nation-states, coalitions of America’s erstwhile trading partners began responding in kind, sending financial markets spiraling towards the end of last week.
The whipsaw continued this week, augmented by reports both dubious and true describing a White House willing to negotiate taxes on imported goods.
The evening’s international tenor was augmented by the presence of several high-profile international guests, Swartz said in her introduction of Ross. Consuls from Mexico and Canada as well as Belgian consuls and students from six countries.
At one point, a so-called fireside chat onstage between Ross, Swartz and Aleardi found itself briefly interrupted by the telltale electronic screech of audio feedback. All three fell silent — but Ross, not for long.
“That’s someone who doesn’t like tariffs,” said Ross with an impish grin, before the high-pitched pulse had even fully subsided. Peals of laughter swept through the sold-out crowd, as they would at several of the commerce secretary’s other jokes.
On Wednesday, Trump moved to pause what he called “reciprocal” tariffs — those above 10 percent, designed to avenge “trade deficits” caused by the U.S. importing more from many countries than it sells there — for 90 days, leaving only the triple-digit, trade-war fees levied against the People’s Republic of China in place.
The markets, which had crashed and lurched to the tune of tens of trillions of dollars a day, jolted upwards. By the time Ross took the stage on Alter Hall’s seventh floor, the S&P 500 index had sent investors home from its best day since 2008. It was like Denzel Washington’s “Flight,” for international economic policy.
Many financial analysts feel justified in viewing the tariffs as a temporary measure — a negotiating tactic, a mirage, a bluff designed to bend the nations of the world to Washington’s will. Ross acknowledged Trump could use high tariffs to extract concessions from other countries, but he also noted the president sees them as a tool to renovate America’s economy and accomplish several second-term policy priorities.
“If you are a trading partner of the U.S., a government or a company abroad, whoo — big sigh of relief,” said Swartz, Sweden’s honorary consul in Philadelphia, once offstage.
Average Americans might exhale too, Swartz added. But they also might be a little frustrated.
The opening months of the Trump administration have often seen the White House take so many actions at the same time — with such sweeping consequences — that members of the public have often been frozen in confusion and fear.
Members of the public often struggle to tell which federal agency might soon find its work stopped, or which real or perceived threat — hairdressers mistaken for Venezuelan gangsters, collegiate op-ed writers decreed terrorists, gender-fluid grocery shoppers trying to find a bathroom that won’t get them arrested — might next draw the government’s attention.
In fact, the White House’s unpredictability impacted even the event’s organizers: Temple’s Center for International Business Education and Research, or CIBER, helped summon Ross to North Philadelphia. CIBER receives much of its funding through the Department of Education, noted Hunter — leaving its future uncertain amid cuts to federal agencies.
Most of the dean’s opening remarks appeared focused on promoting the center’s value to anyone who might have a say in its financial fate.
“This is an investment that will pay off — literally,” Hunter said.
But it’s not just activists, queer people or niche educators in the crosshairs. It’s money. And it is money that has roused Congress and other institutions to reassert themselves.
“From the American perspective, where every issue that is up for grabs in the new administration feels like it’s stopping and starting and changing — it’s really exhausting to track,” Swartz said. “Maybe that sense of relief is shorter-lived for the U.S. citizens and people focused on this economy, as compared to overseas.”
The unpredictability of Trump’s decisions, no matter how severe, gives him a degree of leverage on the world stage that would be tough to accrue otherwise, Ross said. Americans tried doing things differently for four years during Joe Biden’s quadrennium in the Oval Office. In the commerce secretary’s view, it didn’t work.
Still, the question remained: Why tariffs? Why now? For that, Ross pointed to the president’s political position: In his first term, Trump wrangled with a Republican Party that hadn’t fully accepted him or his modus operandi. His victory in the November 2016 presidential election had been far from decisive, Ross added, in large part due to unanswered questions regarding Russia’s role in influencing an already-volatile campaign.
“He was in a much weaker position,” Ross said. “Now, he is in total control of the Republican Party.”
And the GOP, at least for now, counts among its members the main decision-makers in all three branches of government. Trump wants to take advantage of his strength while it’s still there.
Metalworkers, auto builders, middle Americans languishing in low-wage work — those left bereft by the exodus of the nation’s industrial might went unmentioned on Fox’s seventh floor. Ditto for the millions of factory employees in South Asia and other developing countries who make possible the modern service economy.
Yet, toward the end of the night, Ross did face a head-on challenge: Real estate agent Emily Qing Hui Wang, a real estate agent and member of the National Association of Realtors’ global committee. Tariff talk risks driving investors to seek refuge in other countries. So, Wang asked why every sector of the economy needed to suffer, in her view, when trade deficits often arose from specific industries.
Ross waved a hand. “Your premise is entirely incorrect,” he replied, in part; surely an imbalance in one sector would influence others.
Wang felt Ross answered her question fairly, she said afterwards. But she wasn’t quite convinced.
“Everybody, we love America; we want it to be strong,” Wang said. “But this has to be fair trade. Otherwise, the whole environment, the whole global trade will not be fair and it will be not balanced.”
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