Trump Issues 3-Phase Plan to Reopen Economy

President Donald Trump released late Thursday a three-stage plan for governors to use in reopening their economies, arguing that preserving the health of Americans also means “preserving the health and functioning” of the nation’s economy.

During a Thursday evening media briefing, Trump said that based on the latest data, “our team of experts believes that we can begin the next front in our war, which we’re calling Opening up America Again. That’s what we’re doing, we’re opening up our country.”

Trump announced on Tuesday the leaders of banks and financial services firms that will help re-open the economy and released the list of lawmakers Thursday. That list included senators and representatives from both parties, including all Republican senators except Mitt Romney of Utah, the only Republican to vote in Trump’s impeachment trial to remove him from office.

The new federal guidelines on reopening the country, Trump said, will allow governors to take “a phased and deliberate approach to reopening their states.”

Some states, Trump continued, will be able to open up “sooner than others.”

But a coalition of seven Midwestern governors announced the same day that they were joining forces to determine when to start easing stay-at-home restrictions and reopen their states’ economies. Similar efforts are being made by governors on the West Coast and in the Northeast.

Ed Mills, policy analyst for Raymond James, told ThinkAdvisor in a Friday morning email that governors “will absolutely follow the [federal] guidelines, but they will be forced to flesh out the details.”

Trump, Mills said, “has made it clear that much of this is up to the states, so the states are creating consortiums to ensure that there is coordination. These consortiums will help, but you are likely to have a partisan divide in how some of the states chose to respond.”