Jeff Immelt says the relationship between business and government is absolutely busted. And no one has a fix

Like many Americans, I find the political conventions completely magnetic. Politicians and citizens delivering heartfelt or overheated testimonies, phrases going viral while others die quick deaths, pundits offering up commentary both terrible and insightful — all in the service of testing and launching the storylines we’ll hear endlessly over the next 100 days.

Typically, everyone knows the general convention themes; the real surprise is who will soar and who will tank. But this year I have been completely blindsided by one topic that has whipped up both parties — the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. Donald Trump in his acceptance speech warned that Hillary Clinton would support the 12-country agreement, which he called a job- and independence threat. Clinton has said she's against it, but that hasn't stopped “No TPP” signs from blanketing Philadelphia's Wells Fargo Arena. I understand the unease, of course. While these deals historically open new markets to businesses, they also usher in real and debilitating job loss. But the TPP as a buzzworthy, delegate-enraging topic wasn’t something I would have predicted, especially since polls showed general support for trade deals.

Jeff Immelt, the CEO of GE, could have told me otherwise. Over the last year, he has been watching and warning in his speeches and writings about creeping protectionism. He’s seen borders closing not just in the U.S. but around the world — and doesn’t see it slowing. GE testified before Congress on the for the need for TPP and in his most recent annual letter, Immelt took a raw swipe at the political situation:  “[T]he difficult relationship between business and government [is] the worst I have ever seen,” he wrote. “Technology, productivity and globalization have been the driving forces during my business career. In business, if you don’t lead these changes, you get fired; in politics, if you don’t fight them, you can’t get elected… In the U.S., we want exports but seem to hate trade and exporters.”

Earlier this week, Immelt stopped by the LinkedIn NYC offices and we talked about whether the conventions were making him more optimistic or less about how government and business could work together. He said the distance between the two is just increasing. Immelt, a broad 6’4" 60 year old, was an offensive tackle at Dartmouth and still has some of that who-is-going-stop-me? joy you’d expect from someone who liked playing that position: No matter what the politicians do, he’ll find a way through. His plan is to manage around nativism and gridlock by building near his customers; but that's not the kind of capital-intensive plan other companies without GE's size can easily pull off. Still, he clearly wishes that things are different — and sees some hope in getting employees to embrace the need to get their voice out there.

Immelt and I also talked about the massive transformation he was pushing GE through as it becomes a pure-play industrial and industrial-technology company. It's likely the largest corporate restructuring ever. He’s embracing Silicon Valley culture (not to mention its workers) to be able to turn machines into machines that report and think, through the work of sensors and big data. Some of the transformation has even involved scrapping GE’s once legendarily terrifying annual review (earlier this week, GE's head of HR, Susan Peters, published her companywide memo explaining the change). But many questions remain: Can he rewire a 330,000-person company that's spread around the world? And are customers — many of whom long-ago outsourced their IT work — even ready or prepared to deploy what he’s selling to them? All of that’s in Part 2, coming next week.

Some edited highlights from today's clip:

On whether he has any hope of politicians and business leaders working more closely together:

None. I'm not an overly political guy, but I sit here and say security's important, growth is important and unity is important, right? Those are the three big pictures. Security: When I became CEO there were no geopolitical conflicts around the world, now there's like 23. Growth: 2 percent GDP growth, just too slow to create the kind of jobs people want to create. And unity: I mean you watch it on TV, it's quite hard. I just think we need a leader that's going to stand up and say follow me, I'm going to work with both sides and I haven't see that yet.

On TPP and the distrust of global trade

Let me take you down two paths. When I worked with the President on the Jobs and Competitiveness Council, really four things came to the fore: You have to reduce regulation, you have to help small business, you have to really work on training and education and you have to invest in infrastructure.

Those are the four things that help promote growth.

I haven't seen either side really have a plan on any of those things. On globalization, look, we have 5% of the world's population and we have 25% of the world's GDP. The American economy is set up to intersect with the rest of the world.

Now, in our case, to be honest with you I'm for trade, but we don't need these trade deals. I think it would be better if we had an EXIM [Export–Import Bank], but we can survive without it. But it's going to mean that we have to move work around the world and if that's what people really want, that's the impact it's going to be. I would rather see the U.S. kind of stand up and say, “Hey we're going to compete with anybody in the world, we can beat China, we can beat Europe,” and really try to work on how to make the country more competitive. That's not what we see. We see protectionism on both sides really. So look, this is going to go the way it goes. We're going to run GE to be a great global company with or without trade deals.

The days of wage arbitrage are over. When we go to a country like China or the Middle East, it's to get access to those markets and we're a $20 billion exporter. So we're in theory what the country wants, which is being a high-tech export.

On what other issues the U.S. faces

I graduated from high school in the '70s. We were No. 1 in education, we were No. 1 in infrastructure in the 1970s. Today, we're not in the top 15 in math and science, our infrastructure's not in the top 20. We have other things to fix as a country other than just trade. When you're driving home tonight say, “I believe in exports. That's why we don't have an EXIM bank,” right? Just say it three times to yourself and you burst into laughter. So all the things we say we're for as a country, we don't really act on it. But as a company, we can navigate with or without it. We're going to do what we have to do.

On whether business has a duty to help educated politicians and citizens.

It's too complicated to explain in the environment we have today. I try to go to D.C. and talk to people about export banks. Here's what China does, here's what Germany does, here's what Canada does. And on the other side, there's no listening. It's dogma and philosophy and things like that.

We're in 185 countries; we can't wait for that. So we're not in a mode today where real communication can take place.

I don't think business should give up, but I would say that every executive who's maybe watching this: You're on your own, brother. You better go chart your own path because if you waiting for TPP, if you're waiting for the Republicans to get why the Export-Import Bank's important, you're going to be waiting a long time. So chart the path on your own.

On how employee voice can accomplish what a slew of CEO's can't.

My real task is to run a great company. There's 330,000 people that work at GE. They don't want their CEO to be a politician. They want him to make good gas turbines, good jet engines, make them competitive, things like that. So that's really most of what I think about it. Now I do feel like we've earned the right to point out things that we think should be fixed, right, and I do that judiciously with the knowledge that I'm speaking for a mass of people all the time.

But the last thing I would say, here's where I think business has gotten it wrong. The strength of business isn't 100 CEOs in Washington, D.C. That's a laugh-line now. Really it's a whipping boy.

The strength of our company is the GE employees in our supply chain is a million strong in the U.S. A million strong. Our suppliers, our customers, the people that work for us, that's what we have to recapture. It's not some fat cat in D.C., but it's workers in Cincinnati, Ohio, Greenville, South Carolina, Houston, Texas. That's GE and they have a right to have their concerns heard as it pertains to exports and things like that.

I personally think there's too much money in politics. I don't think lobbying in D.C. matters at all. I don't think it works. I think we have to be better at advocacy, which says the team we have in a factory in Cincinnati, they have voice. They're the people that are creating value, they're going to church on Sunday, things like that. They have voice and I think that's where business needs to pick up on all the people. Because at the end of the day, look, the people that work for GE in Cincinnati and Houston, they basically like their company, they love their company, right, they want to see good things happen in the economy and that's in some way who we're fighting for in all of this.