The Road to Making America Great Again Runs Through Asia
Back when Donald Trump was busy firing people on The Apprentice, corporate brands across America were busy “hiring” his show to advertise their wares. The list included Pepsi, McDonald’s, Cheetos, KFC, Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats, Wendy’s, Yoplait, Subway, Visa, and Ford, to name just a few. Many of the companies that own those same brands, like PepsiCo (also owner of Cheetos) and Yum! Brands (owner of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell), have surely been watching President Trump’s ongoing trip to Asia with interest, because they understand a fundamental truth undergirding the global economy: Asia will drive future growth, anchored by a rising middle class hungry for consumer goods. American brands positioned to capitalize on that growth will survive and thrive.
Amid now-President Trump’s talk of winners and losers in the global economy and his pledges to makeone factor is often discounted. The rise of the East could, in fact, benefit the companies and peoples of the West. When President Barack Obama introduced his rebalance to Asia (aka, the “Asia Pivot”), he based the idea on the understanding that the world’s political and economic center of gravity was Too often, however, even in the Obama era, the Asia pivot was seen as a policy of containment of China, or a welcome respite from a fractious Middle East.
