Lobbyists will have their hands full with several massive legislative battles coming early in a second Trump administration.
President-elect Trump is poised to disrupt business as usual in Washington when he takes office on Jan. 20, threatening steep tariffs on U.S. imports that could hit foreign allies and enemies and the businesses that utilize international supply chains.
The Republican-controlled Congress is also preparing to move two budget reconciliation bills — which would allow them to pass legislation with a simple majority — to shore up border security as Trump cracks down on immigration and to extend and build upon Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.
"The question for every business or trade association is: are you on a Republican member’s top three must have list? Having solid champions will be the difference between success and disappointment in 2025," said Loren Monroe, a principal at BGR Group.
Congress has also been punting the five-year agriculture funding package, known as the “farm bill,” for two years. Republicans have been pushing to cut nutrition programs to free up more funding for farmers whose livelihoods have been disrupted by higher prices and extreme weather, a "false choice,” according to Vince Hall, chief government relations officer at Feeding America.
And although a bill to break up the so-called “Visa-Mastercard duopoly” once again failed to make it to the floor for a vote, the long-running battle between banks and retailers over credit card “swipe fees” is expected to continue in the 119th Congress.
Sweeping new tariffs on U.S. imports were a central position for the Trump campaign, which bucked blowback from economists, who warned they could drive up prices as companies pass on the cost to consumers and worsen inflation.
Since the election, he has threatened 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada over border security and an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods coming into the U.S. to compel China to impose the “maximum penalty, that of death,” on drug traffickers.
He threatened a 60 percent tariff on Chinese imports on the campaign trail.
But Trump is ultimately a “dealmaker,” the legal and lobbying giant Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld wrote in a post-election analysis, which noted that the “threat of a baseline tariff could be used to negotiate mini-deals as well.”
“This could include novel sectoral agreements that seek to work with allies and partners to diversify key supply chains (e.g., semiconductors, critical minerals, medical supplies) away from China,” according to Akin.
Trump’s controversial immigration policies became a hallmark of his first administration. He has promised another ambitious crackdown during his second term, including the biggest deportation operation in history.
But his agenda faces obstacles, including potential legal challenges and pressure from major agricultural lobbies and business leaders whose workforces rely heavily on immigrants, including those who are in the country illegally.
Bruce Mehlman of Mehlman Consulting said “businesses are all over the map” on this issue.
“For some this is an existential risk, for others more of a broader concern about societal disruption, and for others still not immediately on the threat map,” Mehlman said.
Tech leaders including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Sriram Krishnan, Trump’s incoming senior White House policy adviser on artificial intelligence, have also suggested removing caps on green cards for skilled immigrants amid Trump’s immigration crackdown, prompting backlash this week from far-right activist and avid Trump supporter Laura Loomer.
Lobbyists at the Republican-led shop AxAdvocacy highlighted another risk for The Hill: that a fight over border wall funds could lead to a government shutdown in March.
Senate GOP leadership this month unveiled a plan to prioritize border funding and hold tax reform for a second reconciliation bill, much to the dismay of tax lobbyists who believe it will take longer than expected to pass a highly-anticipated tax package.
Trump’s populist campaign promises including no taxes on tips could also make it more difficult for the traditional Republican allies in business to push their priorities, especially as GOP leaders navigate a small but powerful coalition of deficit hawks in the House that could complicate the process.
"The majority’s goal of simplifying the tax code and pressure to curb the federal deficit will translate into corporate tax priorities being at risk unless you have champions in Congress who will stand up. Narrow margins will empower individual members of Congress to fight for what they need for their vote," said Monroe.
While several provisions in Trump’s 2017 tax cut bill won't expire until the end of 2025, tax lobbyists warned delays could derail tax reform efforts and impose uncertainty on businesses and individuals as they plan for the year ahead.
“If you’re a small businessman, and you’re trying to decide whether to invest, and you don’t know whether it’s going to be expensing in a year, you don’t do it now,” said Grover Norquist, founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform.
In the end-of-year funding package, Congress included a second consecutive one-year extension to the 2018 farm bill.
The farm bill funds agricultural and nutrition programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which usually receive the largest share of farm bill funding.
Republicans have proposed cuts to nutrition programs and conservation funding in the Inflation Reduction Act to free up more money for farmers hit by higher prices and extreme weather. But anti-hunger advocates such as Feeding America, a nonprofit network of 200 food banks, were lobbying up to defend nutrition programs even before the election.
Feeding America strongly advocates for nutrition programs like the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), which provides monthly food boxes to low-income seniors. But they also fight for the farmers with which they partner.
"We can't solve hunger without food, and America's farmers have been in deep and meaningful partnership with food banks for over 50 years,” said Hall, Feed America’s chief lobbyist.
“We hope that Congress moves beyond the false choice of choosing between farmers and nutrition programs, because the nation absolutely needs both in order to address the pressing and growing problem of hunger.”
There was a lot of noise this Congress around the Credit Card Competition Act, a bill championed by retailers and reviled by banks.
The legislation would require large financial institutions to offer at least two payment processing network options to process credit card options, one of which cannot be Visa or Mastercard. Those two companies control a combined 80 percent of the market, and critics call it a “duopoly.”
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), one of the bill’s sponsors, said the Credit Card Competition Act is about offering options to retailers. The National Retail Federation (NRF), one of the bill’s biggest champions, says interchange fees are the highest operating cost after labor for most retailers.
“This way, small businesses would finally have a real choice: they can route credit card transactions on the Visa or Mastercard network and continue to pay interchange fees that often rank as their second or biggest expense, or they could select a lower cost alternative,” Durbin said during a hearing with the CEOs of Visa and Mastercard last month.
Despite promises last summer that Senate leaders would hold a vote on the bill, however, it did not come up before Congress adjourned.
Richard Hunt, executive director of the Electronic Payments Coalition, which represents Visa, Mastercard and other banks and credit unions, took issue with the term “swipe fees” when The Hill asked him about the next phase of the legislative fight.
He also projected confidence for the battle ahead.
"In 2024, they threw everything and the kitchen sink at us,” Hunt said. “Bottom line is, to your question, we're ready next year for whatever they throw at us."
