SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Much of corporate America has been reluctant to criticize President Trump this year, even as he rolls out policies that can cost many companies a lot of money. Now a powerful business group has sued the Trump administration over an expensive change to a work visa program. NPR business correspondent Maria Aspan reports.
MARIA ASPAN, BYLINE: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of the biggest business lobbies in the country. It represents 300,000 companies of all sizes and it's generally pretty friendly to Republicans, including President Trump.
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SUZANNE CLARK: I think it's our job to be working with the administration and helping grow the economy in any way that we can.
ASPAN: That's Chamber CEO Suzanne Clark talking to CNBC back in May. She was actually criticizing some of Trump's economic policies, including his sweeping new tariffs, but she was still careful to praise him.
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CLARK: This administration does care about the economy.
ASPAN: But fast-forward to last week. The Chamber sued the White House, asking a court to block Trump's steep new fees for H-1B visas. It's one of the first major instances of a big business group publicly opposing Trump this year. Companies use H-1Bs to hire skilled foreign workers, like software engineers and doctors. The Chamber says these visas allow American businesses to hire the best talent from around the world, boosting the entire U.S. economy. Employers usually pay a few thousand dollars for each H-1B visa, but now Trump wants to start charging $100,000 per application. That's a huge new expense, including for the Big Tech companies that hire tons of H-1B workers. But they are staying quiet.
DANIEL KINDERMAN: The Big Tech firms that have kind of cozied up for Trump - they're sort of, like, you know, schmoozing with Trump.
ASPAN: Daniel Kinderman is a political science professor at the University of Delaware, where he studies business and politics. As he points out, many Big Tech CEOs are going to dinner with the president and donating to his renovations of the White House. But many of these companies are also on the board of the Chamber of Commerce, which is now asking a court to block Trump's H-1B fees. Its lawsuit calls them, quote, "plainly unlawful," and it argues that only Congress can set these policies, not the president. Kinderman says that this is part of the Chamber's job for its members.
KINDERMAN: When they don't want to directly challenge the government, they can use the Chamber to get things they want, and it provides them with cover.
ASPAN: In an emailed statement to NPR, the White House says that, quote, "President Trump promised to put American workers first." It also called his new visa fees lawful. The Chamber of Commerce declined an NPR interview request, saying it doesn't comment on active litigation. But even as it sues the administration, the Chamber also praised Trump for his, quote, "ambitious agenda." And aside from this one issue, corporate America is still pretty reluctant to publicly criticize Trump on things like tariffs or his efforts to exert more control over private companies like Intel and Nvidia. Ann Lipton is a business law professor at the University of Colorado.
ANN LIPTON: I do not expect any businesses to act for any reason other than profit-seeking. They're not going to try to save democracy to save democracy or whatever. They're going to act because they think something is profitable.
ASPAN: She thinks very little will change for U.S. businesses until big individual companies are more willing to push back in public and say...
LIPTON: This is harming our business. This is a bad move for America's economy.
ASPAN: But, she adds, maybe the Chamber's lawsuit is a first step to making companies and CEOs slightly more comfortable saying that in public.
Maria Aspan, NPR News, New York.
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