Stability Is Good for Business. Trump’s Whims Threaten It part 2

Everything Trump literally said is coming literally true; everything the serious people heard remains an unserious hope. Businesses may eventually get the tax and regulatory reform they wanted, but it’s not a priority. The technology industry, the financial industry, and some others are beginning to figure this out. Richard Fenning, the chief executive officer of consulting firm Control Risks, told Bloomberg TV that the president has “had this extraordinary honeymoon where Wall Street has kind of discounted all the negative aspects.” However, as the ramifications of the migrant ban set in, “perhaps that honeymoon is starting to be over.”

The problem is bigger than some disagreements over policy priorities. The most troubling aspect of Trump’s immigration order may be that it covered U.S. lawful permanent residents, that is, green card holders who’d spent years building lives in the U.S. While the timeline is a little unclear, it appears that the Department of Homeland Security originally assumed that the order wouldn’t apply to green card holders but was overruled by political advisers in the White House. After a weekend of protest, this decision was reversed, and Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly announced that green card holders would be allowed in—unless he finds a reason to keep them out.

All of this happened through informal channels, avoiding the usual rule-making and oversight procedures that normally constrain our administrative state, and left even those in charge of enforcing the order confused. “A Border Patrol agent, confronted with arriving refugees, referred questions only to the president himself,” reported CNN. A visitor from Jordan—a country not on the banned list—was reportedly denied entry in Chicago. And after several federal courts issued orders staying enforcement, there were reports that Customs and Border Protection agents were defying those court orders.