The President's Strategic and Policy Forum was a group operated from February to August 2017 by U.S. President Donald Trump, who sought perspectives from business leaders on how to create jobs and improve growth for the U.S. economy.
The 16-member board was initially led by Stephen A. Schwarzman, the co-founder of private equity firm The Blackstone Group. Its first meeting was in February 2017.[1]
Several of its members resigned within months. In June, Elon Musk resigned to protest Trump's June withdrawal from the Paris Climate agreement.[2] Others resigned in August to protest President Trump's statements regarding the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.[3] Resignations included Travis Kalanick,[4][5] Bob Iger, Ken Frazier, Brian Krzanich, Kevin Plank, Schwarzman and Jamie Dimon.
On August 16, 2017, a dozen of the CEOs on the forum and the similar American Manufacturing Council decided on a conference call that they would withdraw and so dissolve the body. But before they could make their announcement, Trump announced via Twitter that he was disbanding it.[6] He also disbanded the American Manufacturing Council.[6][7]
"With the collapse of the councils, the president has all but lost his most natural constituency — the corporate leaders who stood to benefit from his agenda of lower taxes and lighter regulation," the New York Times wrote at the time.[6]