Tough Talk on Trump

Jeffrey D. DeBoer, president and chief executive officer of The Real Estate Roundtable, leads a Tuesday discussion at DLA Piper’s 14th Global Real Estate Summit in Chicago.

CHICAGO—Commercial real estate executives typically look for certainty in the marketplace, and some moves by the Trump administration have caused concern. At DLA Piper’s 14th Global Real Estate Summit in Chicago on Tuesday, an all-star group of politicos tackled these issues, including the possibility of increased racial strife in the US, before a packed ballroom in the Four Seasons Hotel.

The recent disturbances in Charlottesville, VA, the president’s response, and the eventual fallout, were uppermost in the minds of many at the lunchtime panel discussion. Several weeks ago, a group of corporate executives resigned from a variety of executive branch advisory councils to protest what they saw as a weak reaction from President Trump to racist marches through that university town. The administration responded by wholly disbanding several of these business advisory groups, causing some to worry whether it can now get necessary advice.