Chap. 20: Taking Back Trump's America Serialization

Twenty: A Deplorable’s Basket of Buy American Executive Orders

Enjoy the read! The entire book is available on Amazon.

We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and Hire American President Donald J. Trump, Inauguration Speech, January 20, 2017

A key element of my strategic plan to populate the 2020 campaign with a strong MAGA message was a beautiful basket of Buy American, Hire American Executive Orders I had readied for the home stretch. These Action-Action-Action POTUS arrows were designed to add several exclamation points to the two most simple rules the Boss had set out in his 2017 Inauguration Speech. Yet, getting just about any of these Buy American Executive Orders signed before Election Day would turn out to be next to impossible – the Boss’ two simple rules notwithstanding.

Nor was this an aberration. As the Director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, one of my primary missions was to strengthen and expand the Federal Government’s Buy American, Hire American policies. Yet, for the four full years I would spend in the administration, I would encounter stiff opposition both within the White House perimeter and from many of the Cabinet Secretaries and their Deputies that Donald J. Trump himself had appointed.

At the Cabinet level, Defense Secretary Mad Dog Mattis, King Rex Tillerson at the State Department, and Elaine Chao’s Deputy Jeff Rosen at the Department of Transportation were particular bitter anti-Buy American pills to swallow.

Inside the White House perimeter, my biggest Buy American opposition invariably came from first Gary Cohn and then Larry Kudlow in their roles as the Director of the National Economic Council (NEC). Cohn and Kudlow were child’s play, however, compared to my epic throw downs with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), first run by Mick Mulvaney as its Director and then by Mulvaney’s protege Russ Vought.

What all of these zealots had in common was an extreme free market ideology. So whenever I would try to move a Buy American Executive Order through the NEC and OMB bureaucracies, the draft would inevitably come back from the Staff Secretary process littered with snarky comments about how the order was going to increase the costs of government.

“No Shite Sherlock,” was always my first thought. Of course it’s going to cost more to require that we Buy American. But it’s also going to create more jobs and strengthen our manufacturing and defense industrial base.

My next thought was at least slightly more nuanced and went along the lines of: You free market zealots who never should have been allowed into a Trump White House just don’t get it. If American companies are competing in a world of unfair trade where countries like China, China, and China unmercifully subsidize their manufactured products, it will be impossible for American manufacturers to compete.

Along with tools like tariffs, Buy American policies help offset this unfair trade by giving preference to American companies. And such policies do so within clear economic boundaries.

To wit: All Buy American statutes have very clear exemptions for both excessive costs and the possible scarcity of the item being procured.

And how’s this for nuance: For every dollar spent on Buy American government procurement, close to forty cents comes back to the government in the form of tax revenues.¹⁵² Put that in your OMB pipe and smoke it.

More often than not, however, it would be me who would get smoked in the West Wing; and it would be on more than one morning over the first three and a half years of the administration that I would wake up and ask myself: “Just what the hell is going on here?”

Yet, it would be during the last few months leading into Election Day that my chronic anger and frustration at the situation would morph into a sense of acute political urgency. This is because I knew that I had in my hot little hands a potent set of Buy American Executive Orders that could truly move the political needle, particularly in Blue Wall country.

One such Order was designed to swiftly bring the United States Postal Service into conformance with our tough Buy American government procurement rules. My ulterior motive here – and it was pure politics given the Blue Wall stakes involved – was to make damn sure that when the USPS brain trust awarded a major pending $6 billion contract for a new fleet of almost 200,000 delivery vehicles, America’s Postal Service would indeed Buy American.

By getting that Executive Order signed expeditiously, this would send the appropriate Buy American signal to the bureaucrats at USPS not to buy vehicles Made in India or Turkey. Rather, they should favor a joint purely domestic bid from the Oshkosh Defense Company and the Ford Motor Company.

To be Blue Wall clear here, Oshkosh Defense – do not confuse it with the blue jean company – has a very large corporate headquarters and factory footprint in Wisconsin while Ford’s humongous footprint in Michigan rivals that of the Abominable Snowman.

I personally visited the Oshkosh corporate mothership in Wisconsin twice. The first time was with the Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer in 2019; and I was sad to see both the witty and urbane Spencer – and my access to his beautiful Pentagon Gulfstream jet – disappear when Rich was fired after exhibiting a wave of Never-Trump pique.¹⁵³

The second time I visited Oshkosh Defense was with the National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien in the weeks before the 2020 election. This was strictly a “no Hatch Act violation” policy trip – wink, wink. Never mind the major press conference Robert and I held that day touting the political virtues of President Trump’s policies in creating great manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin.

And this may amuse you: With O’Brien at the wheel and me bouncing around in the back jump seat on a dare from O’Brien’s Deputy Alex Gray, Robert drove one of Oshkosh’s Joint Light Tactical Vehicles around its Afghanistan-lite mini-mountainous test course.

I am happy to report Brother O’Brien acquitted himself quite well. At one point, we barreled up an almost 40° incline in that heavily armored JLTV beast. It made a Humvee look like a little red wagon. Too much fun.

The sad MAGA Post script here: This USPS Buy American Executive Order would indeed get signed, but on January 14^th, 2021, well after the election. It was a waste of some very good ammunition; and all because of Bad Personnel interacting with Bad Process and a feckless Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.