OPINION: The Trump impact gets real

When an emerging problem starts affecting your neighbors and friends, you know it’s starting to get real.

In the early 1980s a mysterious disease started killing gay men. Initially no one paid much attention. 

Before long the disease spread to young women and babies. And the number of deaths grew substantially. Eventually, everyone knew someone who had been infected and/or died. 

That is when America started to pay attention. Infectious disease specialists at the National Institutes of Health and elsewhere eventually discovered that the AIDS virus was the cause.

Republicans and Democrats alike worked hard to alleviate human suffering, both in the United States and abroad. Once the impact of AIDS became so widespread that it was personal to Americans, a bipartisan effort emerged.  

We are about to see a somewhat similar situation unfold. Trump’s cuts to federal funding and his on-and-off tariffs are about to impact our friends and neighbors. 

Cuts to government services get little notice at first. Not all of us personally know an unemployed air traffic controller, or a Veterans’ Administration nurse, or a researcher at the National Institutes of Health.

But as the administration guts more and more agencies and more employees become jobless, the extent to which the U.S. government supports our entire economy will become apparent. 

On Monday, an air traffic controller at Newark International told MSNBC, “It is not safe. It is not a safe situation right now for the flying public … Don’t fly into Newark. Avoid Newark at all costs.”

Anyone who has flown lately understands the impact of the 400 Federal Aviation Administration jobs that Trump eliminated in February. 

The public is growing aware of friends and loved ones who are losing employment. 

Job losses at the U.S. Forest Service and the National Parks Service mean that Americans’ summer vacations will be limited, inconvenient and perhaps uncomfortable. Cutbacks at the Bureau of Land Management mean that wildfires will be wilder, more widespread and more destructive. More citizens in burned out communities will have to evacuate.

Trump’s cuts to federal agencies have secondary effects as well. Victims of fires and floods can expect little or no support from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Homeowners insurance rates are likely to rise exponentially.

Americans will also learn that the U.S. Agency for International Development does a lot more than simply provide foreign assistance to people living in less developed countries.

Farmers in Idaho and in other states sell millions of dollars in grains at market prices to USAID. In fact, according to a wheat industry spokesperson, food aid is a “top 10 export market for U.S. wheat farmers.”

Many American church groups send mission trips overseas to distribute that USAID food aid. These organizations will lose funding and fire or lay off employees. In Uganda, to take just one example, recent job cuts place more than a million refugees at risk of food insecurity.

In Idaho, cuts to Medicaid mean that the 20 percent of Idahoans who rely on this federal health care coverage will certainly feel the Trump impact.

Governor Little, who not long ago opposed cuts to Medicaid, signed into law a so-called “compromise bill” (sponsored by Rep. Jordan Redman) that limits the providers who can treat Medicaid patients, and forces work requirements on Medicaid recipients. Similar legislation in Arkansas and Georgia led to cuts in services, but did not save those states any money. Verifying and tracking a Medicaid recipient’s employment will only cost the state more.

In Coeur d’Alene, delayed Medicaid payments from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services led to a 10 percent reduction in force at Heritage Health.

Given that one in five Idahoans relies on Medicaid, it’s likely that we all know or love someone who will be impacted by these new restrictions. 

Trump Administration tariffs offer another example of impending disaster. Prices will inevitably rise for any products made, or even assembled, outside the U.S. A period of inflation is sure to come.

Even if Trump rescinds tariffs soon, supply chains may be very slow to recover. 

Economic experts do not expect tariffs to lead to a rebirth of American industrial strength. The few corporations that do come home will probably automate production as much as possible, creating few if any new jobs.

An economist recently compared Trump’s impact on our Nation’s jobs and overall economy to the old Wile E. Coyote Cartoons. The coyote runs off a cliff, and hangs in mid air waiting for gravity to kick in. After a long pause, he falls several thousand feet and is flattened on the desert floor.

So, whether you are a vacationer, a consumer or a health care patient, you had best hope you have a parachute to soften the impact of your fall.

On the hopeful side, the Trump effect led voters in Canada, Mexico and Australia to elect liberal governments — in a landslide. The 2026 elections provide Americans suffering from buyers’ remorse a similar opportunity.

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Evan Koch is chairman of the Kootenai County Democrats.