While a lot of states are turning blue, Ohio is one of the few getting redder—but that is only because so many people are leaving. With the exception of Columbus, the cities in Ohio are suffering from an exodus, due to a sluggish economy. Cleveland, Toledo, and Youngstown have been hit especially hard, and have seen the largest population drops in the Buckeye State.
When Trump decided to go to Ohio and make an ass of himself, it was because he was told he has to hold Ohio if he wants any shot at re-election in 2020. There are smart and stupid ways to go about it. A smart plan would be to help secure strategic investments for Ohio cities in the medical and science sectors, which is how Pittsburgh and Philadelphia turned their own population exoduses around. Conversely, a stupid plan would be to hold a pointless rally at a declining plant and spend most of your time bashing a dead senator. Is it any surprise which way Trump went?
If this was just Trump’s buffoonery, I wouldn’t be writing this. But it's not just that Trump is not helping matters in Ohio—it's that he’s seemingly doing everything he can to hurt its people. Very soon, he’s going to hurt them even more.
Let’s start with what he’s done so far.
First, let's look at Ohio’s agriculture sector. Farmers in the Buckeye State have been devastated by Trump’s trade war with China. A total of 172 family dairy farms alone shut down in Ohio last year. Soybean farmers lost 75% of their sales to China, which amounts to almost half a billion dollars. In July 2018, then-Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, lamented the effect of Trump’s trade war on the state’s farmers, and the impetus behind it.
“You have to wonder, is this about vote-buying; is this about the fact that you don’t want farmers turning against you in a midterm when they’re suffering the consequences of trade?” Kasich said, adding that other businesses and also consumers are going to feel the impacts. “What’s the next group we have to bail out to spare the pain of a tariff that doesn’t make any sense?”
Ohio farmers' suffering grew tremendously during Trump’s recent idiotic government shutdown, which halted loans, payments, and data they desperately needed. The state’s agriculture department is not as robust as California’s, which was able to pick up the slack for its farmers, and the outlook is not pretty.
Next, there’s construction. $112 million is expected to be taken from five planned military construction projects in Ohio to fund Trump’s vanity wall. This includes a major project at Wright–Patterson Air Force Base that was expected to provide much-needed construction jobs.
Third, there’s the manufacturing sector. It’s hard to overstate the impact of the decline of these kinds of jobs in Ohio. These poor people might be suffering the most right now. Lordstown Mayor Arno Hill, a Republican, went on Fox to complain that Trump didn’t bother to visit the city's GM plant and talk with the community, yet managed to go to a political fundraiser in Canton, where couples paid $70,000 to sit with him. Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke, on the other hand, found time to visit the plant.
The Lordstown factory that Trump failed to save was in a county that had voted Democratic in every election since the Carter administration, but in 2016, it gave Trump a chance when he falsely promised that he would save its jobs.
Instead, he imposed tariffs. HUUUUUGE tariffs.
Trump doesn’t believe in much, but one unshakable false belief he clings to is that tariffs always help his red-state workers and hurt foreign workers. Therefore, in his mind, bigger tariffs mean even bigger help for us and a bigger hurt for our supposed enemies. Of course, Trump doesn’t understand the intricacies of the global supply chain. The moron doesn’t even understand how umbrellas work.
When Trump even just suggested he would impose tariffs to punish China, he wound up driving up the cost of raw material used in Ohio factories by over 50%. One such manufacturer in Cleveland lamented losing a major proposal to a Chinese factory when Trump went tariff-crazy. Once imposed, Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum cost automakers Ford and GM about $1 billion each. GM’s CEO even cited the tariffs as a reason for shutting the Lordstown plant. (Trump blamed union dues. Figure that one out.)
As bad as things are right now in Ohio, they are about to get a whole lot worse:
A confidential government report has provided President Donald Trump with a legal rationale to impose heavy new tariffs on foreign cars as soon as this spring, a prospect fiercely opposed by White House officials and congressional Republicans alarmed by its enormous economic and political stakes.
Trump is preparing massive new tariffs on foreign automobiles that will cost the U.S. hundreds of thousands of additional U.S. jobs, particularly in the Rust Belt. The tariffs on steel and aluminum are horrid, but the auto industry employs six times as many people as those industries do. The result will be catastrophic.
“The reality is auto tariffs would put Ohio into a recession,” said Dan Ujczo, a Columbus-based international trade lawyer who has been closely studying the impact of recent trade actions on Ohio companies.
This impact won’t just be felt in Ohio. It will take years to reverse the damage that Trump has done to our nation. After years of false promises and ruinous policies, Ohio has finally started to sour on Trump.
Sadly, they’re in for a lot more suffering until we get rid of him.