If you want to hire a guest worker with a PhD, you have to pay $100,000 under new federal rules — unless you can get an exemption from President Donald Trump.

If you want to sell prescription drugs made overseas, your customers will have to pay steep tariffs — unless, like Pfizer, you cut a deal to sell your drugs through a new Trump-branded pharmaceutical portal.

TRUMP ATTACKS COMPANIES, AND THEY HIRE HIS FRIENDS AS LOBBYISTS

And if your company wants to merge with a Japanese company, Trump might block it — unless you give him a “golden share.”

There’s a pattern here. In a mocking but charitable attempt to describe Trump’s behavior, journalist Derek Thompson suggested Trump just loves phone calls.

Others offer a less charitable key to understanding why Trump does what he does: He is trying to solicit bribes.

A common thread runs through these explanations of the president, and following that thread can help explain much about his presidency and personality.

Personally, why does he seem to lack ideological conviction? Why do his views seem to change? Why doesn’t he hold grudges or show loyalty?

Policy-wise, why does he love tariffs? Why does he favor so much more government intervention in the economy than did earlier Republicans?

The answer is this: Trump wants government by negotiation and deal-making. Rather than fixed rules that are predictable and uniform, he wants everything on the table: The Art of the Deal in the White House.

This is, for Trump, a major benefit of increased federal power, and particularly of increased executive discretion. Waivers, exemptions, and flexible rulemaking all bring businesses, lobbyists, governors, mayors, foreign leaders, and other politicians to Trump’s table, giving him more leverage to demand what he wants.

It also increases lobbying in Washington, D.C., and the hiring of the president’s friends as lobbyists.

The rules are harsh, but the exemptions are plentiful — at a price.

Trump didn’t invent it, but he’s taken it to a new level. Call it “government by deal.”

Increase lobbyist visits with this one trick

Under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, lobbying firms and companies that lobby Washington must file quarterly reports describing on what issues they lobby and whom they lobby — the House, the Senate, or certain federal agencies and offices.

Over the past 10 years, the average quarter saw about 970 filings mention lobbying the White House, and another 570 filings mention lobbying the “Executive Office of the President,” which is the president’s inner circle within the White House.

Then came Trump and government by deal.

In the second quarter of 2025, the first full quarter of the second Trump administration, 1,669 filings mention lobbying the White House (72% above average) and 892 filings mention the Executive Office of the President (56% above average).

These are both all-time highs — by a lot. The previous highs for those offices were 1330 and 738, respectively, meaning in Trump’s first quarter, the White House and EOP were lobbied 25% and 20% more than ever before.

This massive surge of White House lobbying is coming from all corners of the economy. For instance, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation had no reported history of lobbying the White House or the EOP before this year. In March, Trump took credit for arranging a $100 billion investment by TSMC in Arizona.

In the first quarter after this deal, which was the first full quarter of this Trump term, TSMC stopped lobbying other parts of the government and started lobbying the EOP on the enforcement of environmental regulations.  

The National Oilseed Processors Association hadn’t lobbied the Executive Office of the President in eight years until Trump took office. With Trump came Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a White House war on seed oils and “ultra-processed foods.”

In response, the oilseed industry has started lobbying the White House on, in the words of its lobbying filings, “Issues related to edible vegetable oils in food; Issues related to vegetable proteins including soybean meal; Issues related to so-called ‘Ultra-Processed Foods’ or UPFs; Issues related to crop protection products; Issues related to food labeling and ingredient restrictions.”

These examples show how a more interventionist government stimulates lobbying. But with Trump, it’s more than just big government that juices lobbying. Specifically, Trump’s policies increase the government’s role in the economy not through uniform rules, but with plenty of discretion by the executive in how and against whom to enforce the rules.

The new rules on high-skilled guest workers are a good recent example.

Guest workers and imported drugs

Trump, in September, issued a new rule requiring an employer to pay $100,000 for every high-skilled guest worker it wants to hire. This new fee for H-1B visas could cost tech companies hundreds of millions of dollars.

But the rule allows the president to waive the fee “in the national interest and does not pose a threat to the security or welfare of the United States.”

From the first few months of Trump’s term, we can guess what a tech company could do to convince Trump that its foreign hires are “in the national interest.” Maybe the company could offer the White House a controlling share of the company. Maybe the executive could offer Trump an airplane. Maybe the executive would simply give Trump a massive signing ceremony and sit for White House videos explaining how Trump is saving the economy.

Pfizer starred in another recent display of the everything-is-negotiable presidency. Trump has regularly inveighed against Big Pharma, and Kennedy has portrayed drugmakers as the root of America’s ill health.

Trump recently announced that name-brand drugs made overseas would face a 100% tariff. Then, a few days later, Trump held a White House event with Pfizer executives, announcing that Pfizer’s foreign-made drugs would be exempt from the tariff for three years because the company would sell its drugs, purportedly at a discount, through a new bespoke government-run drug marketplace called TrumpRx.

Tariffs are perfect for this sort of command-deal-making because Congress has largely handed the tariff power over to the president. It’s the only tax that the president can hike or cut at will. More importantly, Trump has the power to grant loopholes and exceptions.

Lobbying Boom

In Trump’s first full quarter, the lobbying firm that used to employ his chief of staff and his attorney general — and which was founded by his former attorney, who is a top donor — set the record for the most lobbying revenue by any firm in a single quarter.

Trump announced earlier this year that he would ban Nvidia from selling its artificial intelligence microchips to China. The chipmaker, around the same time, launched an in-house lobbying shop for the first time. One of the registered lobbyists was Stewart Barber, who served in Trump’s White House for four years. Subsequently, Trump reversed his decision.

TRUMP’S TARIFFS BRING BUSINESS TO DC

The lobbying sector is typically understood as the lever by which industry moves government. It’s better understood as the tool politicians use to extract money and favors from industry.

The more powerful the government is, and the more empowered the president is to make a deal, the more everyone with money and power comes knocking at the White House door — and the more Trump gets what he wants.

, 2025-10-05 12:00:00, , Washington Examiner, %%https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-favicon.png?w=32, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feed/, Timothy P. Carney