It appears that Mr. Trump’s numbers are moving, and I think it is important to remember that he received slightly less than 50% of the popular vote, which means there are a significant number of people in opposition to him which certainly could account for the movement of his job approval rating downward. The real surprise was, of course, his job approval rating was in the 52/53 range for several weeks which means some of those who did not vote for him must approve of his performance. That is apparently now waning, and so we see a slip. The other interesting thing, of course, is the number of Republicans facing hostile crowds at town halls in red districts, and even though some of the participants may not be Republicans, it appears that many are. This continues to be an incredibly fluid and interesting time in our politics.
A Trump Advisor, Alina Habba says veterans employed by the Federal Government “are not people who actually work”. Trump reduced the VA staff by 80,000 recently. Now we need to wonder who supports the Vets and the Blue? Obviously not Trump.
Stefanik has been dead silent on tariffs; she’s not acting like our Congresswoman.
The imposition of tariffs as threatened on Mexico and Canda are the source of a real circus and we are made to look foolish. Canada is proceeding with many of their retaliatory tariffs, and they are furious and will look for other markets and are applying a 25% tariffs on Canadians returning with American goods. That will kill tourism for those of us living along the border and maybe Florida as well.
If Mr. Trump’s tariffs are imposed along with those on China, they will result in some very specific price hikes making things more expensive for Americans, including gasoline which may jump as high as 40 cents a gallon according to Gas Buddy, cars which may take a bit longer to come to the retail space while likely to jump significantly, I have heard numbers in the $9,000-$10,000 range per vehicle, vegetables, fruit, beer, spirits, beef, pork, grains, potatoes, and canola oil. This is not a list of, if you will, all but the obvious ones but clearly more products will be impacted. The other likely outcome is an increase in inflation, while at the same time Mr. Trump’s belief that manufacturing will miraculously turn to the United States, fails to take into account the fact that even the recent $1 billion investment mentioned by the Taiwanese will take years to materialize, so the return of the jobs may well not occur before he leaves office. I can say from firsthand experience we are seeing locally, at least anecdotally, Canadians returning their ski passes to Whiteface Mountain, not showing up at other ski locations, a decline in shopping in Plattsburgh, and of course a decline in border crossings, all of which does not bode well for our local economy. I wonder how many others will also be affected.
We also heard of Canadians leaving Florida and going back to Canada instead of spending the remainder of their winter there, which will result, obviously, in a decline for those economies. I trust that all the people who voted for Mr. Trump and wanted tough talk are happy, but they may be less so when they are paying more at the grocery store, the gas pumps, and seeing their small businesses suffer a decline in revenue as Canadians refuse to come into the United States or buy from us which they do from many, many states.
Musk’s authority appears to be curtailed by Mr. Trump granting authority to cabinet secretaries to use a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer.
The flood of activity makes it hard to prioritize what you are going to comment on, but then again, chaos is what Mr. Trump wants.
Democrats in both houses should refuse any CR that does not include a pledge by the President to honor funding levels passed by Congress, return employment to at least 80% of the current federal levels, and pledge no cuts to social security, Medicare, or Medicaid.
Mr. Trump recently, and somewhat quietly, exempted all goods eligible for the USMCA from the tariffs. It appears Mr. Navarro missed that bit of treaty law.
Our environment becomes more confusing all the time and now Mr. Trump is even talking about sanctioning Russia because Russia has upped its game against the Ukraine and Mr. Trump seems surprised. Obviously, Putin is taking advantage of whatever he can.
Bill Owens is a former member of Congress representing the New York 21st, a partner in Stafford, Owens, Piller, Murnane, Kelleher and Trombley in Plattsburgh, NY and a Strategic Advisor at Dentons to Washington, DC.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.