JFK’s Dangerous Playbook for Trump – POLITICO Magazine
But if you really want to worry about where the limits might lie when a president decides to go after individual companies—and even individual executives—there’s a cautionary tale from half a century ago that seems right on point. And the president stretching the boundaries of his power was John F. Kennedy.
In the spring of 1962, President Kennedy was celebrating a key labor agreement between the United States Steel Company—the nation’s biggest—and the United Steelworkers’ Union. Steel was a major component of the nation’s manufacturing sector. So the modest 2.5 per cent wage increase promised to act as a brake on rising prices, and by extension a victory against a boost in inflation that was on the top of the White House’s concern.
A few days later, on April 10, US Steel chairman Roger Blough came into the Oval Office and handed Kennedy a statement announcing that the company was raising prices for steel 3.5 per cent—a hike other steel companies would immediately follow.