Latest news with #TrumpOne
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Boo-hoo! A petulant Trump whines about flying on the majestic Air Force One
A few years ago, I was flying back to New York City from Los Angeles. I sat in the very last row, where the seat doesn't recline — I mean, that really doesn't mean anything anymore, am I right? I stuffed my bag under the seat in front of me, which left me with no legroom. And here's the kicker: It was the middle seat on a full flight. Keep up with the latest in + news and politics. It was agonizing, and it doesn't end there. There were thunderstorms in NYC, which meant that we flew in circles above Newark Airport for a couple of hours. Next, we were running out of fuel, so we landed at a small Air Force base in Pennsylvania to refuel. By this time, we had been on the plane for over eight hours, and we proceeded to sit at that air base for another 90 minutes. Once airborne again, we couldn't land at any of the airports in NYC because of the storms, so we flew to Boston. It was a nightmare in the sky that never ended. Now, when I get a seat anywhere, even in the middle, and it isn't the last row, I celebrate. But my horrible experience pales in comparison to what Donald Trump has to deal with when he flies on renowned Air Force One. Returning from his Middle East gilded trip late this week, Trump sounded less than pleased with his flight itinerary. 'I leave now and get into a 42-year-old Boeing,' he griped to reporters. Boo-hoo, Donald. We feel so very sorry for you having to fly on the majestic Air Force One. Donald, how would you compare the following scenario to your experience on your personal luxury jet, which you call 'Trump One,' and your current shabby plane that is a hallmark of U.S. pride worldwide? It's arguably the world's most famous plane. Imagine instead, Donald, that you're flying back via the following scenario. You rush to the airport and finally make it to your gate after waiting in a security line that felt like an audition for Survivor. You board in Zone 5. You shuffle down the aisle like cattle, bumping shoulders and apologizing every 10 seconds. Wait a minute! You would definitely be one of those arrogant people who do not apologize. Related: What you need to know about the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, & Biphobia (IDAHOBIT) You reach your seat. Let's say it's 27 B. Middle. You stow your backpack under the seat in front of you, instantly losing six inches of legroom. You're overweight, Donald (morbidly obese), so your love handles are already overflowing into the seats next to you. Your knees, already wobbly, are now pressed up against a hard plastic tray table. Your elbows are engaged in Cold War-era diplomacy for the armrests, and your seatmate has just revealed a fetid tuna sandwich. Now, compare that to flying on your '42-year-old Boeing.' You sit comfortably in myriad rooms, offices, and gilded suites of Air Force One. It's a plane so luxurious it makes the Ritz-Carlton look like a Motel 6; nevertheless, you start complaining that it's not as nice as a Qatari 747 you might get for free. Trump is telling anyone stupid enough to believe him that the Qataris are falling over themselves to give him a $400 million plane that to his warped sense of entitlement makes Air Force One look like junk. Aww. Poor baby. The free world's most pampered frequent flyer wants an upgrade. This isn't just tone-deaf. Trump is in a full-blown braggadocio of entitlement. He is essentially and cluelessly lobbying for a foreign government to hand him a literal flying palace that he intends to keep after leaving office. Not only is it borderline illegal under U.S. ethics and national security laws (presidents aren't supposed to take foreign bribes, even if they come with gold-plated bathrooms), it's also grotesquely immoral. Experts say converting the Qatari 747 to meet U.S. security and communications standards could cost taxpayers $1 billion or more. That's right, a billion dollars so that Trump can have a shinier toy than the current marvel he's already been gifted by the American people. And that, of course, is Air Force One. It's technically the VC-25, so it is not just a plane. It's a 4,000-square-foot fortress in the sky. It has private sleeping quarters, an onboard medical suite, and even an emergency operating room, secure communications, two full-service kitchens that can prepare 100 meals at a time, and enough defensive technology to qualify as a mini Pentagon with wings. It is part presidential command center, part five-star hotel, and part flying tank. Trump, meanwhile, has his own Trump Force One, a Boeing 757 he used when he wasn't using a taxpayer plane, to fly to rallies and golf courses, retrofitted with gold-plated seat belt buckles, leather armchairs, and a 57-inch flat-screen TV. Which I assume has no remote control, since it's 'glued' to Fox News. His granddaughter recently gave the public a tour, which looked like the set of Succession if it had been designed by Liberace. But Trump still feels the need to moan about the fact that Air Force One doesn't quite match the glitz of a Gulf state dictator's private bird. He isn't just missing the point. He's proving it. Here we are in a moment when American air travel has become a test of physical endurance. Just ask any passenger rerouted through Newark Airport, where the only guarantee is that you will arrive somewhere, sometime, somehow, possibly with a new appreciation for the pain of a gout toe — trust me, it's hell on wheels, or feet.. The lines at Newark are endless. The delays are biblical. The only in-flight entertainment is listening to the flight attendants fight with gate agents over which flight deserves the one working jet bridge. And Trump wants to tell us Air Force One, with its gourmet meals, satellite communications, missile defense systems, and operating room, just doesn't cut it? You know what, Donald, if you're not happy with Air Force One, here's an alternative for you. We'll put you in the back row on a Newark-bound Spirit Airlines flight. No preboarding. No Secret Service. You'll pay $75 to bring a carry-on, and they'll still gate-check it. You'll sit next to a screaming toddler — we know how much you love kids! Whose parents are like your parents, convinced that their child is an angel who's just a bit cranky. Instead of your homemade hamburgers on Air Force One, your 'snack' will be a single sad Biscoff cookie and a plastic cup half full of your cherished Diet Coke (no, you cannot have the whole can). Then we'll delay the flight for three hours due to a shortage of air traffic controllers. We'll let you stew on the tarmac with nothing but a paper-thin seat and an angry bladder (from your half cup of Diet Coke). Only then can you tell us what flying really feels like. Until then, maybe keep your mouth shut about the horror of flying on Air Force One. Most of us would give anything for a flight where your knees aren't jammed into your rib cage, your chin isn't glued to your chest, and your neighbor doesn't take their socks off. Voices is dedicated to featuring a wide range of inspiring personal stories and impactful opinions from the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. Visit to learn more about submission guidelines. Views expressed in Voices stories are those of the guest writers, columnists, and editors, and do not directly represent the views of The Advocate or our parent company, equalpride.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bret Baier on How He Interviews Donald Trump
Fox News is known for its opinion shows, but one of its most successful hosts is chief political anchor Bret Baier. And his influence is only growing. Ratings are strong for his 'Special Report with Bret Baier,' and in recent months, he's interviewed top Trump officials like Elon Musk, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Vice President JD Vance, as well as top foreign leaders who want to make their case to his right-of-center audience. Oh, and don't forget Baier's regular sit-downs with the president himself. In an interview forthe Playbook Deep Dive podcast, Baier talked about the state of the media in Donald Trump's new Washington, and how to build trust with the public. He also discussed what it's like to play golf with Trump and why he takes off-the-record calls from the president. 'Any journalist would welcome just to know where his head is,' he said. 'Depending on where the day's going, it's a good thing to have a blueprint of what they're thinking about.' Baier also talked about how he approaches interviews with the president — 'I tell them up front that this is going to be tough, but fair' — and what he's expecting on Trump's first foreign trip since returning to the conversation has been edited for length and clarity by Deep Dive Producer Renee Klahr and Senior Producer Alex Keeney. You can listen to the full Playbook Deep Dive podcast interview here: Trump not only has changed everything about how so much of government functions, but also the media, right? What has happened in your eyes to the press since the beginning of the Trump era? Well, Trump One, there was a lot of focus on the Russia investigation for months and months. That dominated news cycle after news cycle. And it affected the way the president dealt with the press and the way the White House dealt with the press. And I think that there was a push-and-pull there based on that story. Arguably we missed some other big things about Trump One. I always say that the story above the water is sort of like an iceberg that you could see and that everybody was focused on. But below the water, there's also a big iceberg that they're trying to change Washington in their own way. They weren't really that successful in the big change, which led to a loss in 2020. But after four years, I think Trump Two had four years to plan what they wanted to do. Which is why this shock and awe executive order blitz happened at the beginning. I think that they're getting about the lower part of the iceberg more day-to-day. We'll see if they're successful in what they want to try to do. Do you think his relationship to the press has changed between the first administration and the second administration? Yeah, he was open, but he wasn't as open as he is now as far as taking adversarial questions, taking questions pretty much every day. He's had so many Q&A sessions or sprays in the Oval Office. That could be 30, 40 minutes of a Q&A that's ahead of a news conference. And this White House, in that session, is making a ton of news by what he says. All of that is news throughout the day. It changes my show five or six times before I get to six o'clock. I don't envy the folks putting together your rundown. Yeah, we rip it up many times — right about five 'til six. But I think he's different. He's more comfortable in his skin. He's obviously doing bigger, bolder things. Not that they're very popular, as we're seeing. But he's holding to what he campaigned on and in his mind, doing what he wants to do, I think. You mentioned that some of them aren't so popular. He's in a risky place with his trade policy right now. What do you think could be the downside to that? Do you think he's in danger? Well, listen, people don't like looking at their 401ks if they're retiring and seeing it shrink dramatically. They don't like a slowdown in this quarter of GDP, a shrinkage of the economy for the first time in three years. They don't like it. And it obviously comes with a reverberation, like 'What's going on? Is this thing going to work out? Are these tariffs going to pan out?' I know the ultimate goal is to rebalance and shift the paradigm in the world, and bring manufacturing back to the U.S. That's a long time, and in the short term, there could be some pain. Fox News is often known for some of its more conservative, opinionated voices. That is not the lane that you own. How do you navigate being under the Fox News umbrella, but sort of owning this lane that is more straight journalism? Well, a couple of things. One, I've done it for 27 years and it's been the same umbrella and it has been the questions. A lot of people paint with a broad brush about our opinion shows. And I tell people to watch my show three times and drop me an email or a post on X or Instagram or TikTok and say what you think. So most people go through that, they come back and say it was fair on the news. When I took over for Brit Hume 16 years ago, which is hard to believe, he said three things: The show is not about you, the show is not about you and let the news drive the show. So that's where my goal is. I don't know if it was because of Trump or if Trump was a byproduct or a symptom of it, but everything that you just said, a lot of reporters have started to do the opposite. It has become a lot about opinion or ideology. And look, there's a business model there, too. And now we're in this environment where it's really hard for people to discern what is news, what is opinion, who to trust, who to listen to — that's been eroding. So how do you think we can try to carry that mantle and not just let that part of our business survive, but thrive? Well, first of all, let me say that the opinion people do an amazing job of what they do. And they have opinions and they clearly express them. I do a different thing. I think if you build it, they will come. And that's really the mantra of our show. We say, "We report, you decide." We'll tell you what this senator is saying. We'll tell you what Democrats, Independents, Republicans are saying. You make the decision how you feel about it. We're not going to tell you whether it's good, bad or indifferent. You make that decision. And story choice, how you go about that, all makes a difference in especially how Middle America views the media. Unfortunately, our business has taken a real hit and I think trust took a hit over the past eight years. When it comes to President Trump and his expectations for an interview with Fox News and an interview with Bret Baier, how do you navigate that relationship? You've had some friendlier interviews, you've had more combative interviews. What is that relationship like? Anytime I go into an interview, I tell them up front that this is going to be tough, but fair. He's going to have an opportunity to answer questions and say what he wants to say but I'm going to press him on things. Now you say friendly interview — the Super Bowl interview was a little different environment in that it was the Super Bowl, so I had to ask questions about the Super Bowl and other things, but at times push back about his thoughts about the economy and where it stands and what his policy was going to be. The interview before that he described as nasty, but he got over it. He still takes your calls? Yeah, he does. Listen, I think that off-the-record conversations with the president of the United States — any journalist would welcome just to know where his head is. Day-to-day, depending on where the day's going, it's a good thing to have a blueprint of what they're thinking about. Speaking of off-the-record conversations, you've played golf with President Trump. How often has that happened? It's a handful, maybe more than a handful of times. He's a good golfer and I played in college, so I think it fits. Do you let him win? How does that work? I try not to, I really do. But it's a great time to be able to not only play golf but at times ask questions about what he's thinking about X, Y, and Z and just be open to listening to that. I think anytime that you have access like that, any journalist should take it and welcome it. You do have him lashing out at members of the media, some of your own colleagues and certainly with the AP. You were pretty outspoken in pushing back in defense of journalists when he banned the AP. How do you thread that needle? And do you think banning news outlets could potentially backfire and actually be a bad thing for this White House? One hundred percent and I've said that both publicly and privately. I don't think it's a good thing. I don't think it's good for precedent. I do not think that you want any administration steering what news organizations editorially can do as far as their access in a pool. The AP has obviously been around since the beginning of not really a thread the needle thing. I think there are certain things where you have to weigh in and you have to say: 'This is what I believe.' Who do you think is to blame for the lack of trust in the media, for the loss of trust in the media? Well, the media. I mean, we went after collectively, and I say broadly, stories that didn't pan out and went overboard on covering some of it. And then at times wore opinion on their sleeves in news programs that really don't fit under the opinion umbrella. We talked about the opinion shows on Fox. There were times where I would watch what I thought was a news show on other channels that became very opinionated and pretty one-sided. Do you think Trump had any role to play in that though, in the loss of trust? Of course, yeah. He kind of broke the system and maybe that was part of his M.O., what he wanted to do. But Middle America didn't trust what they were getting from a lot of the media and you saw that even in polls of the election that suggested he was going to lose up until the last minute. You know, there were a lot of people that just didn't buy in. Do you think that there's a danger now of over-correcting, too? You got some criticism for your interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. Some people said you were much harder on her than you were on Trump or on Elon Musk. What do you say to that? Well, I'd say the environment. I think that the vice president was coming in ready to engage like that. I heard that from her folks afterwards that they were happy that that was the M.O. You were responding to the vibes you were getting, you're saying? Yeah, a little bit. And some of the answers were really interesting on items that I thought clearly they knew I was going to ask, about illegal immigration and the number of people coming across the border. And the answer was, 'Well, we need this comprehensive bill.' And I just went down methodically about, 'Well, couldn't you do by executive order a number of different things?' And she kept on coming back to the comprehensive bill and they've done all they can do. Obviously, that is not the case right now with the numbers we've seen on the southern border. We're watching Eric and Donald Trump Jr. right now making a lot of business deals around the world. Is that something that the media should be looking at just as hard as what Hunter Biden was doing? One hundred percent. And if you're going to play it one way, you've got to play it another way. And you've got to cover all of those things. I think there are real questions about how that works, what access looks like. And I don't think there is a lack of coverage or questions about that. But the Hunter Biden thing was another one of those moments where, "This is all fake. Do not cover anything about this computer or this laptop. It's Russian disinformation and here are 51 former intelligence officers who say it has all the markings of Russian disinformation." And then President Biden goes to the debate stage and says the intelligence community says it's Russian disinformation. That was another one of those moments where Middle America said, "Wait, wait, wait. You just told me this is totally false. And yet now, a year later, it's true and you're doing front-page stories about it?" That's one of the trust things. One thing that's saddened me in TV and media in general is conservatives tend to go on these programs and liberals tend to go on these programs, and I think that's just not healthy for a democracy. Is it hard for you to sometimes get Democrats on your show? No. This week, we're going to have Sen. Bernie Sanders on "Special Report." You were ready for that one. I wasn't planning to book this because of this podcast but it just so happened he's coming on. He's come on numerous times. We did town halls with Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, a number of the primaries. How important is it to see those in power run the gamut of media? I think it's really important and it's great for democracy, it's great for voters. It's great to hear different questions from different points of view. And I think that's really good. I do this thing called 'Common Ground,' where I bring Democrats and Republicans together to talk about what they're working on, as opposed to what they are fighting about. We talk a little bit about what they're fighting about but we then eventually get to what they're working on together. We started it about two years ago. And at first, people were saying, 'How are you going to get them to come together?' And the first ones, we did it and suddenly it was like a stone going down a mountain, kept on gathering and getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And now we take calls from ranking members and chairmen. And I've had strange bedfellows, [Rep. James] Comer and [Rep. Jamie] Raskin come on together. I think there's a way. to talk about things and we don't often do that because in the media obviously we're looking for the thing that drives people apart. You're defying all kinds of expectations. People say TV news is dying, your ratings are going up. People say you need conflict to get ratings, you're finding common ground for ratings. Before I let you go, you're going to the Middle East with President Trump. What are your expectations for that? What are you hoping to learn from that trip? Well, first of all, every time you go to a foreign land on a presidential trip, it is quite something to see. I was on the last Middle East trip in Saudi Arabia. All of these countries obviously roll out the red carpet, they know how President Trump operates and it's interesting to view. This trip, I'm looking to talk to the leaders in those countries. We're working to line up each one, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE. And then I'm looking to talk to the president at the end of the trip before he goes back to see exactly what he thinks about it and what he got out of it. I think a lot's going to come around on the Saudi trip. They have a lot on the table that's being negotiated right now. And my last time there, I interviewed the Crown Prince, MBS, and it was a big, big interview, his first interview with Western journalists and I think that that's going to bode well for this trip. What do you think is at stake for President Trump here? There are a lot of balls in the air. You know, there's Gaza, Hamas. There is Iran, the Houthis with this announcement that they're tired of fighting. That's a big, big deal. The biggest thing is if on Ukraine and Russia, somehow Putin shows up in Riyadh and there is a big deal for a longer cease-fire. So, think about all the foreign policy balls that are in the air, that's a good time to be on a trip. Really quickly on Ukraine, President Trump promised on the campaign trail he was going to solve that, maybe even before Day One. It looks like he's getting impatient with it. He's threatened to walk away if the sides don't come together. What is at stake for him there? A lot. The picture of the president with President Zelenskyy in the Vatican was a really iconic shot. But the other iconic shot, obviously, was Zelenskyy getting kicked out of the White House and he came to 'Special Report' right after that and did an interview. I don't think he would have done that had I not gone to Ukraine the year before and been on the front lines to do an interview about the war. Listen, foreign policy takes time but for the president, there's a lot on the line because I think he thinks of himself as the biggest dealmaker in the world. And he may be, but some of these deals need to come together, not only on trade but on stopping wars. And my final and perhaps most important question, Bret. You have been to the White House here in Washington, D.C. You have also been to what's been dubbed the Winter White House, Mar-a-Lago. Which one's better? Ah, the weather's better in Mar-a-Lago but there's nothing like the White House. Being in the Oval Office, every time I used to walk in there and be positioned to ask a president and a world leader a question, I always pinched myself. Think about all the things that happened in this room, the decisions. It's a real honor to cover politics at a time when people pay attention to politics and when people are paying attention to the world. Listen to this episode of Playbook Deep Dive on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
Bloomberg
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Bloomberg
A New Holy Trinity of Watch Brands for the Non-Billionaire Class
Almost 10 years ago, I fell victim to a terrible affliction. In desperation over the state of the world, I waded, first gingerly then frantically then pathologically, into the vast sea of my first and only hobby: watch collecting. Over the years, as the world continued to disintegrate, as Trump One morphed into Covid then into January 6th and finally into Trump Two, the hobby consumed me. Whenever my phone pinged with the latest disaster, I typed in the foremost site for watch nerds, and was instantly summoned into a private, strangely ordered world. Stone dials riveted me. Balance cocks made me dizzy. The art, the social history, the engineering — all of it made me forget the daily cataclysm around me, if only for a moment. Watches kept me, as my therapist (also a watch collector) said, 'regulated.' I spent hours per day looking at them, talking about them, getting trashed on Old Fashioneds with fellow collectors at secret watch meetups and galas. One watch became 10 became 20, until finally I had amassed 31, a timepiece for every day of the month. I wrote a novel called Lake Success, which featured a watch collector as the main protagonist. I even traveled to a magical city most New Yorkers such as myself have only read about in books — Chicago — to lecture on watches at an event sponsored by the Swiss consulate. And yet, in some ways, I was no more than a horological debutante, for I had never attended the premier event of those consumed by my passion — the annual gathering in Geneva called Watches and Wonders. This needed to change.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Border czar Tom Homan and DeSantis bash Congress during immigration roundtable
From left to right: New College of Florida President Richard Corcoran, Gov. Ron DeSantis, Border Czar Tom Homan, and Chad Wolf, former acting secretary of Homeland Security. The roundtable on immigration and national security took place at the New College Sarasota campus on March 20, 2025. (Screenshot from X livestream) Border czar Tom Homan and Gov. Ron DeSantis scolded the Republican-controlled Congress during a roundtable discussion Thursday, accusing lawmakers of failing to solidify President Donald Trump's sweeping executive orders on immigration. Following the start of Trump's second term, the governor has repeatedly bashed Congress. During the hour-long discussion at the New College of Florida in Sarasota, Homan, DeSantis, and Chad Wolf, former acting secretary of Homeland Security, spent several minutes criticizing the legislative branch, which Republicans control by a narrow majority. 'Let's not forget, under Trump One, Trump 45, you had the House and the Senate. They didn't help him,' Homan said. 'I'm not just talking about Democrats. … Bottom line is, now we have both again and, as Gov. DeSantis said, we're not getting what we need. So, they didn't learn a lesson from the first administration. I was hoping and praying they learned a lesson. Let's hope they come through.' The roundtable, which drew protests outside the campus' Sainer Pavilion, was part of the college's Socratic Stage Dialogue Series meant to provide a wide range of viewpoints, according to its website. Richard Corcoran, a former state House speaker hired by the DeSantis-appointed board of trustees as New College's president, moderated the discussion. How Trump carved a pathway for his mass deportations through executive orders DeSantis expressed skepticism that the U.S. Supreme Court would rule in favor of the Trump administration's attempt to get rid of birthright citizenship. The governor said some of the court's conservative justices are not reliable, calling out Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Roberts issued a public statement Wednesday stating that impeaching judges was not an appropriate response to legal disagreements after Trump called for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who attempted to block the deportation of Venezuelan immigrants. 'I think the Supreme Court will tackle it. Look, I don't know that I would be heavily optimistic that they'll rule the right way,' DeSantis said. 'I think it's possible, but I think it's very much a jump ball.' Homan said he had the same fear as DeSantis regarding the court's decision. The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to limit the scope of the orders from federal judges in three states blocking the executive order ending birthright citizenship for people whose parents were not citizens or legal permanent residents. At the end of the discussion, DeSantis said he was working on a proposal to increase the immigration enforcement collaboration with the federal government. Florida state and local law enforcement have hundreds of agreements with U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement to deputize officers to question and detain people based on their immigration status. DeSantis has referred to those agreements as the maximum level of cooperation. 'I think they're this close to approving and letting us go out and do even more than we've already done over the first two months of the Trump administration,' DeSantis said. 'So we're looking forward to that love to be able to announce something soon.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Donald Trump is about to relaunch his trade war with China—and create even more corporate upheaval in the process
During his first term as president, Donald Trump shook up global trade by imposing new tariffs on China, the world's epicenter for manufacturing. Companies importing Chinese-made goods into the U.S. suddenly found themselves having to pay extra duties—sometimes 30% more—if they continued using that country as a supplier. The response by U.S. businesses was swift: Many relocated at least some of their production from China to countries like Vietnam, India, and Mexico, which weren't in Trump's economic crosshairs. Now, with Trump's second term underway, the tariffs plan is again on the table. But this time, he's promised an expanded version that, if implemented, would create even more corporate upheaval and turn some previously winning countries in his trade war into big losers. 'Trump Two is not Trump One,' warns Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation, a Singapore-based think tank that advocates for sustainable global trade. 'I'm not convinced that everyone recognizes the extent of the danger. It's going to catch a number of folks in the region really off guard.' Trump's specific road map for reshuffling global trade will emerge in the months and years ahead—or perhaps there will never be a map, leaving business leaders in the dark on a critical issue impacting their all-important planning. What is clear from his previous dance with tariffs is this: Even after nearly a decade of tensions with China, U.S. companies still haven't been able to find a replacement for Chinese manufacturing. In reality, Trump's tariffs—largely unchanged under President Joe Biden—accelerated a transition from China that was already underway. Companies had already started to move lower-value manufacturing, like textiles, to other countries as labor there became more expensive. 'A lot of this diversification was the Chinese factories themselves, picking up their equipment and moving the whole thing to Vietnam and Cambodia,' says Joe Ngai, chairman for the Greater China region at consulting firm McKinsey. Beijing's harsh COVID-era lockdowns, which closed factories nationwide and snarled the country's well oiled supply chain, added even more urgency to the shift. U.S. companies realized that they didn't want to depend too much on a single country. Vietnam's status as a manufacturing hub in particular soared from the new push to diversify and avoid tariffs. Apple, HP, and Dell are among the major companies that have moved manufacturing to the Southeast Asian country, part of the $290 billion in foreign investment there since 2016—or more than during the entire two decades prior. 'From an Asian perspective, Trump One was disruptive but not, on balance, that dreadful,' Elms says. Biden-era laws related to China add another complication to the supply-chain story. The Inflation Reduction Act, partly aimed at increasing domestic manufacturing, made China less attractive as a supplier to the clean energy and automotive industries. Electric-vehicle makers, for example, can't collect subsidies offered by the legislation if they use components from countries of concern—namely, China. Additionally, Biden has banned exports of U.S. advanced semiconductors and chipmaking equipment to China. The crackdown has made it more complicated for chipmakers like TSMC, Samsung, and Intel that have existing factories there. The bans, combined with the impact of higher tariffs, have pushed some chip producers to add plants in other countries. As a result of the long list of obstacles, China's share of all U.S. imported goods has dropped sharply in recent years. After peaking at 21.6% of all imports in 2017, China's share had fallen to 13.5% in November, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. One reason China has retained a substantial footing after Trump's broadsides during his first term, as well as Biden's more surgical strikes, is its strength in high-end manufacturing. Not only is China's labor cheap, relatively speaking, but it's also skilled. 'For stuff that's very intricate, there's just no country that can match the scale that China has,' says Keith Hartley, CEO of LevaData, a platform that gives companies insights into their supply chain. In reaction, many companies have pursued a 'China plus one' strategy—or more accurately, a 'China plus one plus one' strategy, according to Hartley. It involves establishing a manufacturing base in China, a second elsewhere in Asia, and a third on yet another continent. That strategy is also being pursued, ironically, by Chinese companies, some of which are now exploring opening new factories closer to markets in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. China electric vehicle giant BYD, for example, has committed to building new plants in Thailand, Brazil, Hungary, Turkey, and Pakistan, and is reportedly considering one in Mexico. So as a second round of Trump tariffs looms, where might companies reshore next? One option is India, already home to a small but growing share of Apple's iPhone manufacturing. Smartphones are now India's largest export to the U.S., thanks partly to Apple and its suppliers' investments there. India 'is seen as an ally of the U.S. and is also eager to limit its own exposure to trade with China,' says Eswar Prasad, a Cornell University economist. But India still hasn't quite caught up to China's well-developed supply chain, with Indian factories reportedly struggling to match the low defect rates of Chinese counterparts. 'Indian manufacturing is not stepping in to be a regional manufacturing hub, let alone a global manufacturing one,' Hartley says. 'It befuddles me.' But will Trump Two present the same opportunities as Trump One? It's unclear. The first Trump administration was largely willing to limit tariffs on products made with Chinese components but assembled in South Korea or Vietnam. Now the U.S. seems determined to cut China off entirely. The problem, many experts say, is that it's nearly impossible to manufacture products without at least some Chinese-made components. No other country—in Asia or elsewhere—offers the breadth of production at a similar cost. 'We are still incredibly addicted to the China supply chain in the global sense—not just the U.S.,' Hartley says. In his second term, Trump is expected to aim his tariffs more broadly, in terms of the number of countries targeted, than he did previously. One strategy may be to slap tariffs on all U.S. imports or on goods from countries that have a trade surplus with the U.S. Several Asian countries, for example, export more to the U.S. than they import. The most dangerously exposed may be Vietnam, which has the third-largest trade surplus with the U.S., after China and Mexico. In 2019, Trump went as far as blasting Vietnam as 'the single worst abuser' on trade. As a result, Sheana Yue, an economist with Oxford Economics, told Fortune in December, 'We expect Vietnam to be the only Southeast Asian economy the Trump administration will implement higher tariffs on when he gets into office. That's bad news for Vietnam, which smashed expectations in 2024 with a 7.1% GDP growth rate thanks to strong exports. This year, its government expects an even faster 8% in economic growth, despite Trump. New tariffs on Vietnam and other countries, if implemented, would be a major hit to companies that have spent millions of dollars to shift production there. Years of planning are usually involved, making it impossible to hopscotch between countries for lower tariffs. 'Creating a factory is a big capital expense. You can't move these things,' McKinsey's Ngai says. Meanwhile, after almost a decade of worsening tensions between Washington and Beijing, Chinese companies are increasingly giving up on ever breaking into the U.S. market. Instead, many are focusing on growing in Indonesia, Africa, and the rest of what's now known as the Global South. 'If, at the end, I don't sell to the U.S., it's not the end of the world,' Ngai says, wearing the hat of Chinese CEOs. U.S. companies, too, are planning for a world without the Chinese market—partly because Chinese products are increasingly high-enough quality to compete against them. Apple, Nike, and Starbucks, for example, now face fierce competition from local Chinese brands that offer good products at cheaper prices. Instead, Ngai thinks, tariffs will complicate life for Western companies that still rely on low-cost Chinese goods: 'The nightmare is not for Chinese companies. The nightmare is for Walmart and Costco if they can't import from China.' Both Costco and Walmart have warned that broad tariffs on U.S. imports translate into higher prices for U.S. consumers. 'Tariffs raise costs,' Costco chief financial officer Gary Millerchip said during a recent earnings call. 'When it rains, it rains on everybody.' Walmart's dependence on Chinese imports to stock its store shelves has declined, however, as it seeks to diversify its suppliers. During the past five years, Chinese imports to the U.S. have declined to 60% of the company's total merchandise from 80%, according to Reuters, while imports from India have soared to 25% from just 2% overall. Many U.S. consumers would feel the financial impact of higher tariffs from the countless small and medium-size manufacturers in China that send cheap goods to the U.S. Online retailers that facilitate crossborder commerce and are increasingly popular with U.S. shoppers would also be impacted. 'The days of Chinese companies like Shein and Temu sending low-value packages to the United States that are not subject to taxes are numbered,' says Prasad, referring to two of the biggest Chinese e-commerce sites in the U.S. Just as some U.S.-based companies haven't quite kicked their addiction to Chinese supply chains, some Chinese manufacturers haven't been able to quit the U.S. consumer. Says Elms, of the Hinrich Foundation: 'It's not so easy to find a replacement market for the U.S.' This article appears in the February/March 2025 issue of Fortune with the headline "Trump's first trade war caused U.S. firms to flee China. Now comes round 2." This story was originally featured on
