The steel and aluminum tariffs announced by the grifter-in-chief announced a couple of weeks ago might have been the result of Trump's impotent rage at the world, and Hope Hicks's resignation, but the ground work for them had been laid well ahead of time by his advisors. All those advisors and their friends stood to gain, according to reporting from The Wall Street Journal. That includes Peter Navarro, a top trade advisor to Trump who had been pegged in the media as one of the primary cheerleaders for starting a trade war.
The WSJ found some interesting background on Navarro, including an FBI investigation into the financing of a documentary he made on "the dangers to the U.S. of China's trade policy." Navarro went to Nucor Corp., and American steel company, for money. They contributed through a nonprofit set up by a friend of Navarro's, a nonprofit that was investigated by the FBI because of its finances, an investigation that included this arrangement. No charges were ever filed, but the funding clearly raised questions. "His connection with Nucor," the WJS points out "underscores the wide-ranging, historic ties between Mr. Trump's top trade advisers and the U.S. steel industry, which stands to benefit from tariffs the Trump administration recently imposed."
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, a Wall Street veteran, spent more than $1 billion to purchase distressed steel firms and assembled them into a new company, International Steel Group Inc., which he sold for $4.5 billion to the London-based Mittal family in 2004, The Wall Street Journal reported at the time. He served on ArcelorMittal's board until becoming commerce secretary last year.
Gilbert Kaplan, Mr. Trump's nominee as undersecretary for international trade at the Commerce Department, is a former steel-industry lobbyist. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer represented American steel companies as a lawyer in private practice before his current turn as the government's top trade negotiator. The USTR's nominated deputy, Jeffrey Gerrish, and his general counsel, Stephen Vaughn, lobbied on trade laws for U.S. Steel Corp. […]
Compared with previous administrations, "the Trump administration seems to have far more individuals in key government positions regulating industries that those individuals got rich working in," said Paul Ryan, vice president for policy and litigation at Common Cause, an advocacy group that supports greater transparency in politics.
The revolving door of government service means that all these men will have lucrative positions waiting for them when they leave the administration since they're taking such good care of their friends. Legal or not, it stinks. It stinks almost as bad as Trump's stealing from public coffers to pay the Trump Organization for his presidential lifestyle.