While I am no fan of President Donald Trump, I nonetheless feel his government downsizing and tariffs are a very serious attempt to address two very serious problems our nation is facing.
Look no further than in fiscal year 2024: The federal deficit was $1.8 trillion, and in calendar year 2024, the trade deficit was $1.2 trillion. These two economic realities could bankrupt the dollar, seriously crater our economy and make the Depression look like the Roaring ’20s.
Some say this is crying gloom and doom, that everything is fine and we certainly didn’t need to take these drastic actions. All that is required is a few tweaks to that combined $3 trillion?
Others say they are only concerned about things going well now — whatever happens in the future, they’ll be fine with it. (Sure, they will.) “Why did we have to rock the boat” is the idea — as in, the time to deal with the boat is not now but when it sinks.
If America is going to maintain its standard of living, we have to deal with these two issues and get them fixed. Don’t like Trump’s approach? Send in a letter suggesting a less painful alternative. It’s the easiest thing in the world to complain; it’s much harder to recommend a solution, especially one that requires hard choices and painful tradeoffs.
— Neil Gaffney, Chicago
Manufacturing economy
The Tribune Editorial Board is pretty certain tariff diplomacy doesn’t work (“Trump’s foolish tariffs take the US economy back centuries,” April 3). I say we have to try something. Our parents benefited from raising families with a manufacturing economy that provided well-paying jobs in which things of value were produced.
Our elite business and political leaders let these jobs go elsewhere with the promise of cheaper goods imported. However, countless middle-class jobs were lost. Millions of Americans were slowly boiled like lobsters, economically. Meanwhile, the financiers and politicians feasted on lobster, the smart people on the editorial board included.
Today, it is clear to me that our global partners seem to have gone a bridge too far with high tariffs on U.S. goods and products. Time to fix things. We have been talking for 20 years with our friends without much to show for it. We will know in 90 days if this be successful.
I look forward to the editorial board’s apologies and confession that good old Trump was right! So much for the economists, socialists and politicians.
— Dennis Demoss, Barrington
Be patient with tariffs
The Tribune Editorial Board is taking a short-term view of what President Donald Trump is attempting to do and what should have been done decades ago. Other countries abuse tariffs that have been in place for decades. We should have no tariffs between countries, and that is what he is working toward. Be patient.
— John Wiedemann, St. Charles
Hard times coming
As a small business owner in Chicago, I view with horror the new worldwide tariffs from President Donald Trump’s administration. I am a longtime bookseller specializing in out-of-print and rare books and selling online through my website and various venues. Much of my income is from overseas sales, but my main clientele is composed largely of middle-class domestic collectors, colleges and libraries. As all books are an easily dispensable commodity in hard times when prices rise for staples and necessities, I have no confidence in Trump’s ideas that the pain from tariffs will be short-lived and of overall benefit to small businesses.
I have seen this meltdown in book sales play out before with terrible consequences. The year was 2008, and the country was undergoing one of its most severe recessions, with businesses closing all over. At the time, I was still employed as a schoolteacher, so my business weathered the collapse much more easily than it will now. As expected, sales plummeted as book buyers cut nonessentials from hurting budgets, and I had to extend retirement plans to weather the crisis.
Now that I am a pensioned, retired teacher with my business as the main source of income, I do not know how my wife and I will be able to weather the sure collapse in sales resulting from the average middle-class family being hit by the predicted $7,000 annual budget shortfall from rising prices.
I only hope Republicans in Congress will help block Trump’s misguided, thoughtless economic policies. If not, we should watch for a bloodbath between now and the midterm elections.
— Carlos M. Martinez, Chicago
What is he thinking?
President Donald Trump imposed a 10% tariff on Heard Island. This island is uninhabited, save for penguins. As the 401(k) accounts of many Americans are tanking, one must wonder: What does this tell us about the president, and what, if anything, is he thinking?
— Jeanine Budach, Mesa, Arizona
Blaming union labor
The Michael Ramirez editorial cartoon of April 4 shows a monkey wrench gumming up the manufacturing gears of the U.S. economy. The wrench is labeled, “Labor costs, unreasonable union demands.” The first problem with this is that union membership in the U.S. is only 10%. That’s down from 20% 40 years ago. Hard to imagine that unions are the problem here, when they represent only 10% of labor.
As for labor costs, in this country, a third of the wealth is held by only the top 1% of the population. Apparently, Ramirez thinks we should smash down laborers even more and cut their wages so that company owners can gather even more wealth.
Here are some real monkey wrenches in the works of the economy. So many people cannot earn a living wage. They struggle, sometimes with two jobs, and cannot get ahead. The data is clear. The middle and lower classes are falling further behind.
And here’s a monster wrench in the works. President Donald Trump’s tariffs are now going to make things much worse, for everyone. Will the tariffs induce industry leaders to move their manufacturing back to the U.S. and pay their workers more? We’ll see, but I doubt it.
— Blaise J. Arena, Des Plaines
Steep price increases
I just had to respond to the letter “Avoiding cost of tariffs” (April 3). The writer thinks that all you need to do is buy a product made in the USA to avoid tariffs. Let’s say that I am a manufacturer whose competitors raised their prices by 20%. I would look at this as an opportunity to raise my own prices. Perhaps not by the same percentage, but I would certainly raise my prices.
This, of course, applies to all products, not only automobiles.
So yes, I expect steep price increases for just about any product, made in America or not.
— Emilio Dilonardo, Bolingbrook
Americans will lose
David N. Simon claims in his April 3 letter that “people can buy vehicles made in the U.S. and avoid the cost from tariffs.” That’s absolutely incorrect.
This administration intends to impose tariffs on imported car parts on May 3. “Domestic” vehicles contain an average of 40% to 50% imported content. The Bank of America thus estimates the cost of “domestic” vehicles will go up by an average of $3,285 as a result of these ridiculous taxes that cannot be avoided by buyers of any make. Former Ford CEO Mark Fields told CNN: “The cost of vehicles will go up. It’s just math. The bottom line is there is absolutely no vehicle that won’t be impacted by tariffs.”
When all new cars become more expensive, demand and thus prices increase for used cars. All Americans will lose.
— Stephen Jarzombek, St. John, Indiana
What we have seen
Apparently, one letter writer (“Reversal on Elon Musk,” April 3) assumes that those of us who oppose everything that the president and his unelected henchman have done are devoid of critical thinking skills. Let me set him straight.
We have seen and heard with our own eyes and ears the nastiness, cruelty, lying, gaslighting, misinformation, disinformation, boasting and slash-and-burn tactics of the current administration. Neither of the two megalomaniacs has given the American people any proof of fraud, nor have any individuals been charged with fraud, although hundreds of thousands have been summarily fired, often by email or text.
I do agree that these are “crazy and dangerous times,” but not because of irrationality on our part. We remain clear-eyed about who deliberately stokes fear and intolerance while they arrogantly disregard who suffers as a result of their policies.
— Karen Teplitzky, Chicago
Not Reagan’s party
In the March 31 letter by Mike Kirchberg (“Putting our nation first”), his final comment, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us,” summarizes the cult of Donald Trump perfectly, and it disturbed me greatly. That comment is not the American way. We root for each other, wanting each other to succeed and not fall, because when one succeeds, we all do.
I’m 60 years old. I taught secondary school for over 30 years. I also worked for a Christian missionary nonprofit for six years. Americans have a long history of giving to each other and to our fellow man in other countries. I appreciate it when I can buy American, but sometimes, it just isn’t financially feasible.
To propagate the “us versus them” mentality is unkind and doesn’t support the American spirit. There is a reason this registered Republican hasn’t voted her party since 2012: It no longer resembles the party of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush I once supported, in which we had our differences but respected each other’s right to have differences.
I desperately hope we can get back there — and soon.
— Elizabeth Oswald, Elgin
Immediate harm
Time has run out. The future of our country’s health care can no longer be about second-guessing, finger-pointing or armchair prognostications. It’s now about personal safety and minimizing individual risks. Every citizen’s well-being is in jeopardy. The rapid dismantling of our public health infrastructure and its ripple effect on private delivery systems will cause immediate and significant harm.
From access to curative drug therapies and emergency medical services, to the tracking of infectious diseases and warnings about community safety threats, to scientific breakthroughs and medical advances, we’re about to live through an unprecedented period of health care catastrophes. The stunning loss of thousands of federal health care professionals will be devastating. Call them bureaucrats, but these dedicated, nonpartisan professionals have improved and saved your life many times over. Think: COVID-19, Meals on Wheels, Alzheimer’s research, fentanyl awareness and diabetes prevention.
I’ve worked in the health care field over 40 years and have seen it through a public and private lens and from a payer and provider perspective. Access, affordability and quality have always challenged the industry. But never has there been a future in which doom and gloom has been so real, for so many. Pharmaceutical and medical device monitoring, cancer screenings, immunizations, smoking cessation, mental health, drug abuse, social determinants of health, cybersecurity and reproductive rights will all suffer significant and deadly setbacks. Chaos will prevail.
And, there is no plan! It’s up to us and our personal medical support networks to collectively fill the void created by the nation’s new health care leadership that has no management experience or no credible scientific or medical background and stands on a foundation of conspiracy theories and false narratives.
We’re in a place of peril — and we’re on our own.
— Lindsay Resnick, Chicago
It’s time to show up
On a recent Saturday, I went to see the local version of the protests that were held nationally at Tesla dealerships. I saw one of the problems with the effort to oppose the Donald Trump regime.
Pro-Trump counterprotesters showed up in superior numbers. They made themselves more visually impressive by bringing large flags. This was not a good look for the future of democracy. It made it look like this was Trump country, which it demonstrably is not.
Kamala Harris was an 11-point winner in Illinois and a 42-point winner in Cook County, where the dealership was. Where was the representation on the day of the protest from that overwhelming majority?
My college social sciences teacher taught me that the organized minority beats the disorganized majority. This was a textbook example of this principle. The kind of Trump supporters who showed up on this day are a tight-knit bunch for whom supporting Trump is a life-defining characteristic because they have been drilled to believe that they are under an existential threat.
It astonishes me that there is, still, so much apathy on the other side. As we are now seeing dramatically demonstrated, people who don’t want to think about politics will be ruled by those who do. If those who want to undermine democracy show more interest than those who want to preserve it, superior numbers on the latter side won’t help. It doesn’t matter how big your stick is if you don’t swing it.
If Trump supporters cannot be made to look like the minority that they are in Cook County, what reason is there for the regime to think that it does not have enough popular support to carry on with its program? In its collective mind, it stretches whatever support that it sees, like when it claims that a historically slim margin of victory was a popular mandate for radical changes. People must demonstrate that this is not so.
Changing attitudes will require showing enough interest to make the numbers count. Americans failed at that in November. They must not assume that the supply of second chances is unlimited. Find a protest, be there and express yourself.
— Curt Fredrikson, Mokena, Illinois
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
