Dear Editor,
Although humorous in the iconic movie ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,’ when the civi teacher explains the meaning of tariffs and the students’ eyes glaze over with boredom; today tariffs are anything but boring and uninteresting. It is on the minds and tongues of everyone how tariffs affect all of our lives. From the availability of products and jobs and the cost of living. And, as of today, it feels as if we’ve been hijacked into the back seat of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.
Not knowing if we’re going into a ditch or over a cliff. Butone way or another we will be paying higher taxes. Trump’s Big Beautiful Tariffs (his favorite word) has caused a domino effect on everything.
My grandparents and parents survived the Great Depression and they had nothing good to say about tariffs. As if an evil word. No doubt because of the tried and failed Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that Trump is trying again today.
It accelerated the Great Depression that added to the devastation of the 1929 stock market crash. What doesn’t Trump get?
Historians say tariffs is what finally led up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Extreme tariffs have never proven to solve problems. It only creates more of them.
As we currently see with the drop in bonds, the value of the dollar, and the stock market that ‘insider traders’ made a killing (Trump’s close associates). While others lost money and the value of their 401k’s.
Although Trump has been tip-toeing back but the damage is done and still is a tailspin. Businesses say they are struggling amid the affects of Trump’s erratic tariffs. Those unable to stockpile or have a line to the White House, Trump, to bend a knee and give favor for an exemption. Unavailable to small businesses.
Hours are being cut and jobs lost from boarding docks to little mom and pop shops. Businesses will fold as prices go up with no end in sight. Or why else would Trump say as if Marie Antoinette, “Let them have two dolls not 30, let them have five pencils not 25.”
While he with his family and his billionaire friends grow richer while we grow poorer. So much for the “90 deals in 90 days” that was going to make our lives better and richer (Trump’s words).
America is watching and protesting across the country and concerns with Brian Walters’ recent op-ed when he said, “You say tariffs are the plan but that plan doesn’t help me. It wasn’t the plan we voted for.”
Although true but we’re stuck with it for now. And unlike Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, he paid the price for his careless and reckless behaviors. We on the other hand will be paying the price. Not Trump.
J.M.
