You can’t run the United States like a business, former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker says.

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Pritzker says the Trump administration’s message on trade has been “threatening and vitriolic,” not to mention inconsistent.

Before and after she served as President Obama’s Secretary of Commerce, Penny Pritzker was a businesswoman, most recently founding PSP Capital Partners. And she’d be the first to tell you — or, if he asked, President Trump — that serving in government requires a completely different mindset.

“Unlike running a business, you can’t just decide what you’re going to do,” Pritzker said on the latest episode of Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher. “It’s a democracy, and a democracy means you have to bring other people along.”

Pritzker is the co-author of a new report, “The Work Ahead,” about how American political leaders can rethink education, training and how the workers of the future will collaborate with machines. But she’s also keeping an eye on America’s international trade policies — or trying to, anyway.

“What are the rules now? Nobody seems to know,” Pritzker said of the Trump administration’s shifting proclamations on trade. “I don’t understand the strategy, I can’t make sense of it. It seems to be that the positioning changes day to day.”

By Eric Johnson.

Full story at Recode.