I am no fan of Donald Trump, but I can stand far enough back from his presidency to see that many of his critics are inadvertently already doing his re-election campaign for him. Today, Starbucks has reacted to Trump’s US travel ban on citizens of seven Middle Eastern and African countries by defiantly saying that it will go out and hire 10,000 refugees.
Can the coffee chain not see that this is exactly the sort of thing which attracts America’s white poor to Donald Trump: the suspicion that they are being overlooked in favour of cheap labour from abroad? In Starbucks’ case it isn’t just a suspicion – it has effectively confirmed that it wants to discriminate against American workers. If you are deliberately favouring refugees it inevitably means that you are going to disfavour other job applicants. Starbucks might think it can earn some virtue points by adopting such a recruitment policy, but it isn’t going to go down well in the US rustbelt if Somalians are going to be hired ahead of local workers who are desperate for any employment they can get.
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