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Under Armour Releases Statement After CEO Kevin Plank Praised President Trump

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Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank praised President Trump in an interview with CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report” on Tuesday.

“To have such a pro-business president is something that is a real asset for the country,” Plank said. “People can really grab that opportunity.” He was responding to a question regarding his involvement in President Trump’s Manufacturing Jobs Initiative.

“He wants to build things. He wants to make bold decisions and be really decisive,” Plank said in regards to President Trump’s goal of building a wall along the United States-Mexico border and his plans to reinvigorate American manufacturing. The President is also moving to reduce Wall Street regulations.

“I’m a big fan of people that operate in the world of ‘publish and iterate’ versus ‘think, think, think, think, think,'” Plank said. “So there’s a lot that I respect there.”

After enormous backlash in the press, in part due to the photo below of Kevin Plank happily sitting next to Stephen Bannon — former executive chair of Breitbart News, an alt-right opinion and commentary website, now serving as Donald Trump’s Chief Strategist — Under Armour released the statement below to clarify its CEO’s message.

Take a look at the statement and let us know what you think in the comments — let’s discuss respectfully.

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Getty/Chip Somodevilla

At Under Armour, our culture has always been about optimism, teamwork, and unity.  We have engaged with both the prior and the current administrations in advocating on business issues that we believe are in the best interests of our consumers, teammates, and shareholders. Kevin Plank was recently invited at the request of the President of the United States, to join the American Manufacturing Council as part of a distinguished group of business leaders. He joined CEOs from companies such as Dow Chemical, Dell, Ford, GE and Tesla, among others to begin an important dialogue around creating jobs in America. We believe it is important for Under Armour to be a part of that discussion.

We have always been committed to developing innovative ways to support and invest in American jobs and manufacturing.  For years, Under Armour has had a long-term strategy for domestic manufacturing and we recently launched our first women’s collection made in our hometown of Baltimore, MD. We are incredibly proud of this important first step in the evolution of creating more jobs at home.

We engage in policy, not politics. We believe in advocating for fair trade, an inclusive immigration policy that welcomes the best and the brightest and those seeking opportunity in the great tradition of our country, and tax reform that drives hiring to help create new jobs globally, across America and in Baltimore.

We have teammates from different religions, races, nationalities, genders and sexual orientations; different ages, life experiences and opinions. This is the core of our company. At Under Armour, our diversity is our strength, and we will continue to advocate for policies that Protect Our House, our business, our team, and our community.

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Source: Business Insider / Baltimore Sun

15 comments
  1. Damage control! I wonder what Steph thinks of this and how it compares to a Nike rep pronouncing his name incorrectly.

      1. LOL I just remembered that UA offers the athletes stocks/stake in the company as opposed to the deals being straight up cash.

  2. But seriously, it doesn’t surprise me at all when any head of a multi-million/billion dollar business supports Trump. That’s their guy. It’s more of a surprise when Mark Cuban says he doesn’t rock with him than it is Robert Kraft saying that he does.

  3. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot, if UA really means this, raise minimum-wage in the US, because economic-slavery should be the first thing you’d want to stop(if the press release is serious, people should be able to live of work, even unschooled work).
    And hire people on full-time contracts, none of the modern 0-hours, flex-work, or freelance nonesense.

      1. Yeah. I’m pretty sure, aside from the occasional model from New Balance or whoever, that the mass manufacturing of sneakers will never come to America. The shoes would cost somewhere over 250. Thats just the reality.

  4. I think anytime you can bring more jobs back to Americans the better. I alot of hurting Americans is about not having enough money for their families. The only thing I could find in my house that was made in America was my Danner boots(work boots). That made me sad.

    1. Yes but I think what Trump ran on and has been promising — bringing jobs back here — won’t work as well as people think, namely because jobs have been lost to automation — not necessarily because they’ve left the US. All the stuff that used to be made in Detroit isn’t made by people anymore.
      Danner boots are serious dude.

  5. He knows that his comments cost his company sales. No amount of damage control will fix that. Eat the loss and stay out of the political theater. UA isn’t moving units like it used to with Curry 3 not appealing to those who bought the Curry 2.

  6. As someone who has studied Sociology (my first degree with a minor in Business) and studied Business/Tech (Masters in Management Information Systems), there is absolutely no way that certain businesses are coming back and for multiple reasons.

    It’s literally too late for America in the sense that people who have benefitted from the way that things are almost never ever go against the status quo. Not to mention those who got on after the first initial movement but still found themselves benefitting would absolutely never take a cut even if that cut didn’t “hurt” them per se but just didn’t produce the same level of wealth.

    I’ve had this convo so many times with my peers on many levels about methods of production and investment because I had to study all this stuff and found it very interesting. However, I stopped talking about it eventually because people started to think that I’m a hippie. I’m not so that’s all I’ll say on it really but the general gist is that it’s way too late for this country to do what a lot of people would like to see happen. It wouldn’t be impossible but just highly improbable. General Stockholders, CEOs, and high level Executives would never let it happen.

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