What it takes to win—or lose—in a meeting with Trump

When Ohio State University President Ted Carter visited the White House last month, he brought President Trump and Vice President JD Vance a promise that his school would help redefine the future of higher education. “Ohio State is not the enemy,” Carter said he told Vance.

When executives from BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz met with Trump last month in an effort to peel back automotive tariffs, they said they would push to open factories in the U.S., people with knowledge of the meeting said.

And when Amazon CEO Andy Jassy recently talked to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles about tariffs, he also offered to help Trump fix the operations and finances of the U.S. Postal Service. Amazon declined to comment.

Companies and institutions are honing a playbook for approaching an unpredictable president. They are showing up prepared to flatter, play ball on the Trump agenda and give him something in return for sparing them from economic pain or executive orders.

Since taking office in January, Trump and his senior aides have deployed executive power to punish enemies with tariffs and other diktats. That has spurred a range of chief executives and other leaders to plead their case directly to Trump.

“There is a lot of fear. I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Wesleyan University President Michael Roth, who has emerged as a Trump critic at a moment when many of his peers are sprinting to the White House. “It’s a fear of retribution.”

The president is far more accessible than many of his predecessors and is often happy to take meetings directly, especially with chief executives he has seen quoted in newspapers or on television, according to people who have interacted with the White House. His staff, lobbyists say, aren’t as ideological about some policy issues, and many aren’t longtime government hands with fixed views.

Lobbyists and trade groups working with chief executives are coaching clients that it is best to bring data and specifics to meetings with the president or his staff. In particular, showing a tariff could hurt a red state or area is a popular pitch. As one GOP strategist who has coached clients put it: Make the case that you will have to lay off people in Ohio versus in a blue state like Massachusetts.

Others have promised Trump the possibility of an announcement, such as jobs, that will benefit him politically. Another tactic is to appear on Fox News just before planning to meet with him or White House staff, some lobbyists say. Some have contributed millions to his super PAC or his presidential library fund.

Dealmaker mode

When oil executives came to the White House to see Trump earlier this year, one of the top goals was to secure exemptions on tariffs. For much of the hour in the Cabinet Room, executives praised Trump, thanking him at length and vowing to help his administration, an attendee said.

At the end of the meeting, Trump said he would do “zero” tariffs on the industry, and they thanked him again, the attendee said.

The BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz executives who met with Trump last month came to the White House in explainer and dealmaker mode. They told Trump it is nearly impossible to secure parts for German cars outside of Germany, and talked extensively about how the tariffs could hurt their businesses, the people with knowledge of the meeting said. The companies also said they would push to open U.S. factories.

About a week later, Trump decided to reduce tariffs on parts, giving the automakers a needed reprieve. The automakers didn’t respond for comment.

Cabinet officials and aides with reporters at the White House in March, when oil company CEOs met with President Trump.

After a White House event with business leaders this past week, Trump took a handful of chief executives into the Oval Office—where drugmakers said they would keep making announcements on bringing manufacturing and jobs back to the U.S. if they are spared from Trump’s tariffs, industry and White House officials said. So far, the industry has avoided the tariffs.

White House spokesman Harrison Fields called Trump the business community’s strongest ally and said he had unlocked $6 trillion in investments. “President Trump actively engages with business leaders, listens to their concerns, and works to secure deals that benefit America and its people,” he said.

Institutions that haven’t been the focus of Trump’s policies are using time with the president to insulate themselves from any future changes.

In mid-April, the day Harvard rejected the White House’s demands that would require federal-government oversight of admissions, hiring and the ideology of students and staff, Ohio State’s Carter had come to Washington with the Buckeyes football team, celebrating their victory in the 2025 college football national championship. In the Oval Office, he reminded Trump that they had met seven years prior.

Later that day, in a private meeting with Vance—an Ohio State alumnus—Carter said he wanted to work with the White House. “We want to be part of this conversation about why the future of higher education can be reimagined, redefined through an institution like Ohio State,” Carter said he told Vance. Carter said he believed Trump and Vance were receptive to his argument though they didn’t have specific requests. The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment on the meeting.

Striking out

Some of the world’s most powerful business leaders have come up empty-handed from such visits.

When Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his advisers came into the Oval Office in February and sought a deal to avoid an antitrust trial, Trump seemed interested and told his aides to work it out. “Let’s get it done,” he said, according to a person familiar with the meeting. In another meeting in March, more particulars were discussed, and Trump still seemed interested in the deal.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, right, at President Trump’s inauguration. Meta lobbied unsuccessfully to avoid the antitrust trial that began last month.

But later, aides brought in some of Meta’s critics to block the deal. Meta’s aides had flooded the White House with calls, but aides said it seemed to backfire. Eventually Trump decided against a deal.

Lawyers at WilmerHale sought to avoid Trump’s ire. After learning they were to be targeted with an executive order, prominent members of the firm repeatedly called White House lawyers and other Trump advisers, people familiar with the matter said. They argued they were a bipartisan firm that had even represented former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and Trump family members in the past. The lawyer Trump wanted to target, former special counsel Robert Mueller, had retired in 2021. WilmerHale took down most mentions of him from the firm’s website. White House staff listened, but eventually Trump signed the order. The firm has sued the White House.

When the American Beverage Association came to the White House seeking to avoid the administration’s cutting soda from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, it brought polling data that showed Trump’s supporters didn’t like restrictions. “Important to the Trump Republican Party are Americans without college degrees, 71% of whom support the purchase of soft drinks and other beverage products using food stamps,” the group wrote in a memo given to the White House and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

They met with numerous Trump advisers, people familiar with the matter said. The head of Coca-Cola had even brought Trump a commemorative inaugural Diet Coke. But the administration allowed states to cut soda from food stamps.

Write to Josh Dawsey at Joshua.Dawsey@WSJ.com, Maggie Severns at maggie.severns@wsj.com and Lindsay Ellis at lindsay.ellis@wsj.com