The Trump administration’s freeze on scientific research and the withdrawal from the World Health Organization and other attempts to stifle continuing research by denying grants, etc. is difficult to fathom. It is unclear what the purpose of these moves are other than to be disruptive and assuming some belief on the part of Mr. Trump that the scientific community is part of his enemy list. Our collective health is in danger.
We have had new discussions about tariffs on steel and aluminum. Canada exports about $8.5 billion of steel to the US, and about $11.5 billion of aluminum out of trade consisting of about $421 billion of imports from Canada. This appears to be a relatively small number. The issue here is what will Canada do in retaliation as Mr. Trump seems to continue to forget that Canada has its finger on a large amount of electricity coming south and oil. Both of which, if they were to suffer interruptions, would cause major problems for many of us in the United States.
Promises made and promises kept. Inflation? No action. Food prices? No action. In fact, egg prices are soaring, and the Waffle House has imposed a surcharge. Ukraine War? No Action. Deportation? Seems to have dropped out of the headlines this week with little being reported, and thus, one assumes, little action. Panama Canal? No action other than chatter by Mr. Rubio. Canada as a 51st state? Does not appear to be going anywhere.
Mr. Trump made some new promises during the week. A new resort in Gaza which would be owned by the US and the Palestinians deported – a word he really likes. We’d also do away with pennies. The situation in Gaza is truly interesting because there is no information about how we would acquire ownership, who would be paying for the development of the resort, and maybe more importantly, who would use it?
Many lawsuits stopping Mr. Trump’s various activities have been instigated in the last several weeks. In my view, the most important was stopping Musk and his friends from accessing the Treasury’s payment system which was deemed unlawful. On a practical plane, these people have no clearances and do not intend to protect our data. I am unsure how Mr. Trump’s supporters can see that as a good thing.
American consumers are souring on the economy while approving of Mr. Trump’s job performance as reported by the Wall Street Journal. Go figure. Their concerns about beautiful tariffs and executive order chaos seem to be the main components driving this change in attitude.
Hiring for January fell below estimates and came in at 143,000 new hires.
I was interested to see if I could determine the number of Democrats or Republicans who were employed by the Federal Government. It appears that the best estimates for political leanings of the 2.2 million Federal workers are that it’s about 30% Republican and 60% Democratic. I wonder if Mr. Trump considers all of them equally incompetent, or just the Democrats.
The next few weeks will tell many tales at how some of these lawsuits play out, whether or not Mr. Trump can continue this pace all remain to be seen. I do wonder, as I did last week, how various groups that voted for Mr. Trump and are being negatively impacted by these executive orders and other actions are actually responding and do they think he is doing a good job for them? Or is this a good job for somebody else?
In another page in the DEI saga, the story of the Tuskegee Airmen was stripped from the Air Force Academy curriculum. It has, however, been reinstated with no explanation as to why it left and why it has come back.
I wonder if all of the frenetic activity is nothing more than a copying of the movie Wag the Dog, as Mr. Trump tries to deflect attention from his “important” agenda, whatever that might be, which is wreaking havoc in many, many places and seems to be doing little good for anyone other than satisfying one of Mr. Trump’s promises. But whether it makes the Federal Government better or cheaper is going to be very hard to determine.
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.
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