Trump’s change of heart puts $1trn building plan in limbo

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Donald Trump’s infrastructure guru spent part of Sept. 26 at a conference in Washington promoting the president’s $1 trillion plan to rebuild the nation’s crumbling roads, bridges and airports relying in part on public-private partnerships. The same day, across town, Trump was telling lawmakers that those kinds of deals don’t work.
The president’s apparent change of heart on what’s been a key pillar of his economic plan left key constituents of the infrastructure initiative reeling.
Trump’s remarks, relayed by three lawmakers after a closed meeting with Republicans and Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, raised new questions about how the plan would be financed, and whether the president was instead considering increasing federal funding for building projects—a prospect made harder by the large tax cut the administration proposed. Democratic lawmakers welcomed the potential opening for more federal spending, while deficit hawks bristled. Both sides, though, are still struggling to interpret Trump’s apparent turnaround.
“It’s hard to say whether he’s doing this to try to open some doors for more bipartisan discussion, or whether it’s really a fundamental policy change,’’ said Robert Poole, director of transportation policy at the Reason Foundation, a free-market research group.
“If it’s fundamental policy change, I imagine there’ll be some people looking for new jobs in the White House because you hired them to do P3 infrastructure,” he said, referring to public-private partnerships.
Following Trump’s comments to the lawmakers, the White House said there are legitimate questions about how public-private partnerships can be incorporated into the infrastructure plan, but that all viable options are still being considered. Before this week private investment had been at the core of Trump’s ambitious infrastructure plan. It was a feature of his campaign material and promoted in the early months of the administration.
Trump built his infrastructure team around DJ Gribbin, an expert on public-private partnerships who’s worked on such deals for Macquarie Capital USA Inc. and Koch Industries. Trump also enlisted other private sector leaders to advise on the subject.
“There has been a knee jerk reaction to P3s from a liberal perspective in a negative way, and a knee jerk reaction from conservatives that think P3s are free money,” Gribbin said, according to a P3 Bulletin report. “Both of those are wrong, and it would be really helpful for this community to get out there and educate about the reality of P3s.”
In an initial framework released in May, the administration said it would commit at least $200 billion of federal funds over 10 years to generate $800 billion in spending by states, localities and the private sector. Trump’s latest remarks raised questions about whether that plan will change or be delayed.
The administration had said it would deliver a proposal to Congress by the end of September, before saying the plan would come after the tax overhaul.