President Trump’s second week was dominated by threats of tariffs, demands against other countries and a controversial funding freeze order.
On Monday, Jan. 27, Trump issued a memorandum pausing the disbursement of all federal grants and loans to counteract what the memorandum described as “Marxist equity, transgenderism and green new deal social engineering policies.”
According to the memorandum, the sweeping pause in the disbursement of financial funds notably excluded “assistance provided directly to individuals,” including Medicare, Social Security and financial aid grants and loans.
The administration rescinded the order freezing the fund disbursement on Tuesday, Jan. 28, after a federal judge paused it.
Marybeth Beller, associate professor of political science at Marshall University, said the order’s effects could have been struck down in the courts if it had not been rescinded.
“In 1974, President Nixon attempted the same thing, and that resulted in the court saying that, ‘No, once Congress has appropriated that money, then it must be spent for that purpose,’” Beller said.
Beller said while the executive branch determines the timeline for spending funds, they still have to be spent as appropriated by Congress.
“I can’t imagine that a court would have let the funding freeze stay if it had gone on for too long,” Beller said.
Trump also issued sanctions and tariffs against Colombia on Sunday, Jan. 26, when Colombia refused to accept flights of deportees from the United States. This move resulted in Colombia acquiescing to accept the deportee flights.
Beller said the potential for a trade war with Colombia resulting from the tariffs could have substantially impacted the costs of consumer goods, such as coffee.
“One of the big imported goods that Americans are hooked on is caffeine, which comes from coffee beans,” Beller said.
“Some people who aren’t addicted to caffeine consider coffee to be discretionary spending, but others don’t, so it would have had a big impact on American household budgets, and that’s just one example of something that we import from Colombia,” Beller said.
On Saturday, Feb. 1, the Trump administration publicized its earlier promised list of tariffs against Canada, Mexico and China. The tariffs included sweeping 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada and a 10% tariff on goods from China. Since then, Canada and Mexico have negotiated with the Trump administration to delay the tariffs for at least a month.
Beller believes these tariffs will have a very significant impact on the American economy.
“Oh, it’s going to be devastating,” Beller said. “So, if those tariffs go into effect, prices on every single thing that we import from Canada and Mexico will increase substantially, quite immediately, and it can be devastating because a lot of those goods are simply not produced in the United States.”
Beller said the nature of the global economy makes tariffs increase prices significantly.
“A lot of supporters of tariffs go back to policies of presidents at the beginning of the 20th century and suggest that tariffs were successful, for example, under President McKinley, and they were, but the American economy was different than in the 1900s,” Beller said. “Most of the goods we purchased were manufactured here in the United States. That has not been the case for decades. Our cell phones, our computers and our cars all have parts that are made in various parts around the world.”
Trump has also promised to impose sweeping tariffs on the European Union, similar to the proposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
Shawn Schulenberg, political science professor at Marshall University, believes the tariffs and threats could lead to countries shifting their international alignments and cooperating more closely with each other rather than the United States.
“If Canada and Mexico started saying, for example, ‘We’re going to start getting Airbus instead of Boeing,’ they could shut out the entire U.S. industry there,” Schulenberg said. “We get so many car parts from Mexico, so maybe Mexican manufacturers will have to reach into Europe instead.”
Schulenberg believes the threats could result in the United States no longer being seen as a reliable partner internationally, causing our allies to look elsewhere for partnerships.
“When you have people that you have tried and true relationships with, and, all of a sudden, you can’t feel like we’re a reliable partner anymore, you’ll look for other reliable partners to fill that gap,” Schulenberg said.
Ashton Pack can be contacted at [email protected].
