A Globe-Trotting Billionaire Defends Trump's Trade Policy

The business community hasn't exactly unified behind Donald Trump. Many corporate honchos who normally support Republican candidates are alarmed at his economic plans, which include scrapping trade agreements and punishing companies that shift jobs abroad. Even before Trump finished delivering a major speech on trade policy in Pennsylvania last month, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was targeting him with a torrent of criticism on social media.

All of this has Trump's friends and allies in the business world rushing to explain their candidate, and themselves. On Monday, Thomas Barrack, a globe-trotting billionaire real-estate investor in Los Angeles who describes Trump as a "close friend," is publishing his own 12-page treatise on the economy. It doesn't mention Trump, but it's a kind of defense of Trump's critique of international trade.