March 5, 2018

Trump Might Provide Tariff Exemptions for Favored CEOs

Here’s the latest on President Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum:

Peter Navarro, an adviser and the architect of many of Mr. Trump’s campaign trade promises, confirmed on Sunday that the president would not exclude any country from the tariffs but said individual companies could apply for exemptions for certain products.

This is Donald Trump’s dream: having corporate CEOs come to him on their knees, begging for tariff exemptions. And this has other benefits: every CEO in America will say nice things about him because they don’t want to ruin their chances of getting an exemption. And who knows? I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump aides whispered in their ears that maybe they could do a little more than just say nice things.

This is an open door for corruption, which I suppose is why Trump likes it. Nobody else should, though.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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