As the White House race took off last summer, food giant Mondelez International found itself in an unusual position: Republican candidate Donald Trump began delivering broadsides against one of its iconic products, Oreo cookies.
"Nabisco is closing a factory in Chicago, and they're moving to Mexico. No more Oreos. I don't like Oreos anymore," Trump told a crowd in New Hampshire on Aug. 14, reacting to reports that Mondelez was shutting down some production lines at its Nabisco subsidiary in Chicago while boosting output in Mexico.
Trump's statement that Mondelez was closing a Chicago factory was erroneous, as the company quickly pointed out, but that didn't stop him from repeating it.
It's unusual for a top presidential candidate, especially a representative of the business-friendly Republican Party, to attack major U.S. corporations by name.
But over the course of his unconventional campaign, Trump has aimed his fire at a range of companies, mostly for shifting jobs abroad (Ford Motor Co, United Technologies Corp unit Carrier Corp) but also for building products in foreign markets (Apple ) and for what he said were violations of antitrust laws (Amazon ).
Trump has threatened the companies with boycotts, tariffs, taxes and other punishments. The Trump campaign declined to comment for this story.
Some of the companies saw their share prices dip in the wake of Trump's criticism while others experienced a small boost.
But all of them were presented with a dilemma that's familiar to the presumptive nominee's many vanquished Republican rivals: Should they engage with a possible future president known for holding a grudge, possibly inviting more wrath, or should they lie low and risk allowing Trump to define them and to push policies they deem harmful?
Most have sought to stay out of the fray even as Trump has kept up the drumbeat of criticism.
"I am fighting hard to bring jobs back to the United States Many companies - like Ford, General Motors, Nabisco, Carrier - are moving production to Mexico," Trump said this week. This was "bad for all Americans," he said.