President Donald Trump the developer was undermined by his worst enemy — President Donald Trump the trade warrior, according to a new report.
Trump’s desire to get the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington renovated before July 4th ran ran headlong into one of his major policy initiatives and led to disaster on the Mall, the New York Times reported Friday.
The botched renovation was collateral damage from his tariff war, argued the Times, describing it as a “problem of Mr. Trump’s making.”
The story begins at the World of Concrete trade show in Las Vegas in January, when a Trump Organization golf club manager named David Schutzenhofer sought assistance with the leaking, algae-ridden Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
“Multiple vendors” recommended Rodney Jarboe, president of Missouri-based Creative Polymers, who had previously worked on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, according to the Times. Jarboe recalled speaking with Schutzenhofer in March about the need to expedite the work as President Trump wanted the renovation completed by July 4. After the trade show, Schutzenhofer selected a polyurea liner coating system for the pool’s concrete slabs. But Trump’s own tariff policies created a material shortage.
“Tariffs were reducing the amount of materials that could come into the U.S. to make this stuff,” Jarboe explained. Faced with the shortage due to the president’s trade war with China, Creative Polymers was forced to partner with Rhino Linings, a California company that manufactured polyurea coatings at its Texas facility.
Rhino produced a coating in a shade called “American flag blue”—a patriotically named hue that appealed to Trump. According to the Times, it ended up not being a great choice.
“A first-time contractor was paid millions of dollars to apply a novel solution designed by a golf club manager to a national landmark,” the Times reported. Charles Birnbaum, president of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, told the Times, “It’s like asking the museum guard to restore a painting in the Met.”
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