CEOs Launch War Rooms, Hotlines to Cope With Donald Trump's Order Blitz

The blitz of executive orders from Trump left business leaders scrambling to make sense of sweeping changes to tax, immigration and trade policies

- Chip Cutter & Alexander Saeedy

JPMorgan Chase set up a war room. The law firm Fisher Phillips created an immigration hotline to help clients manage potential workplace raids. Manufacturers and retailers have teams working to soften the blow of potential new tariffs.

The blitz of executive orders and memos from President Trump left business leaders—some still in the tuxedos they wore to White House inaugural galas—scrambling to make sense of sweeping changes to tax, immigration, trade, and energy policies.

"There's probably some shock and awe on day one," said Nick Studer, chief executive officer of Oliver Wyman, a management consulting firm. Trump is "at the peak of his power now," and more will become clear as the administration gets into governing, said Studer, who added that few companies fully grasp the impact of potential tariffs.

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, a law firm focused on corporate clients, launched a Trump executive order tracker Monday. By Tuesday afternoon, the law firm had posted 32 blog posts summarizing what it believed were some of the most important orders and memos.

Brian Pomper, co-leader of the firm's lobbying practice, said the Trump administration's promise to make major changes in its first 100 days encouraged his firm to launch the tracker. "I was very focused on the executive orders this time in a way that I wasn't in 2021 and in 2017," Pomper said, adding that he was fielding calls from clients about the orders.

Many of Trump's first-day moves were expected, and there were few details on some of the biggest topics, including deportations. Some of the orders are already being challenged in court. The initial orders didn't impose any tariffs, though Trump told reporters he planned to put 25% duties on imports from Mexico and Canada on Feb. 1.