Will US academia and businesses speak up against Trump policies?

Today's clear and present dangers to American advancement and prosperity require influential leaders to voice their protest

- DANI RODRIK

America's prodigious wealth and power are founded on two pillars: universities and businesses. The first produces the ideas, research and training that have made the country a Mecca for the world's best minds. The second generates the investment and innovation that have powered America's formidable economic engine. But now, President Donald Trump seems intent on wrecking both.

Trump's behavior is no surprise. His economic-policy ideas have always been wacky, and his apparent hatred for elite academic institutions, which he views as the home of 'woke' culture, is well known. What's more shocking is that corporate and academic leaders have made barely a peep.

After Trump's election victory last November, there was cautious optimism within business circles. He seemed to them like a welcome change after Joe Biden, who had talked tough against the private sector and supported organized labor and regulation. Trump, by contrast, promised low taxes and less regulation. His tariff talk was a problem, but most assumed that it was largely for show. The stock market blessed Trump's election by soaring to new highs. Tech billionaires donated to his transition and bent the knee at his inauguration.