Editorial: If Trump keeps his campaign promises, it could be devastating for Idaho

With 67% of the vote in Idaho, a vast majority of Idahoans clearly want Donald Trump to be president again.

So what’s in it for Idaho?

“Promises made, promises kept,” was a motto of the Trump campaign. So here’s a look at some of the promises made that could have a direct impact on Idaho.

Mass deportations

Trump promised mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, which would have a devastating impact on Idaho’s economy, from agriculture and manufacturing to construction.

As the Idaho Statesman’s Sarah Cutler reported last week, about 30,000 undocumented immigrants work in Idaho’s dairy industry.

Without these workers, who often take the jobs that Americans don’t want to take, “I don’t think there would be milk,” Idaho Dairymen’s Association president Pete Wiersma told The New York Times. “I just don’t think we could get it done.”

That’s just the dairy industry alone. This doesn’t include other agriculture workers, food manufacturing workers and construction workers.

Think the cost of a home in Idaho is high now? Wait until builders and subcontractors can’t find enough workers for new construction.

Make no mistake, it would be devastating to Idaho’s economy.

Is hiring undocumented immigrants a wonderful solution? No, but it’s reality. And having mass deportations is not the answer, either.

What we need is a comprehensive solution that allows immigrants to work in the United States legally at jobs that Americans aren’t filling, to fuel our best-in-the-world economy. Perhaps the bipartisan immigration reform bill that Trump got Republican senators to scuttle because passage would have hurt his campaign will be revived.

Keep in mind that the United States still has a labor shortage of nearly 3 million workers. Idaho has 53 available workers for every 100 open jobs, with 55,000 job openings and 28,947 unemployed workers, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. That shortage will only be exacerbated by deporting millions of workers already here.

Tariffs

Trump promised more tariffs in his second term as president.

We don’t need to speculate what the impact will be. We already know, based on what happened when he imposed tariffs his first time in office.

Tariffs led to higher prices for consumers and businesses, and retaliatory tariffs affected U.S. producers, including Idaho farmers.

Retaliatory tariffs affected Idaho’s dairy, wheat, barley and potatoes.

Despite the tariffs, the overall U.S. trade deficit did not significantly decrease, and some studies suggested that the tariffs had a negative impact on U.S. GDP growth.

The Tax Foundation estimated that the long-run effects of the tariffs would reduce U.S. GDP by 0.2% and decrease total employment by 142,000 jobs, and the Congressional Budget Office estimated a reduction in real GDP by 0.3%.

Those tariffs contributed to inflation in the United States.

We recognize that the Biden administration has kept many of Trump’s tariffs in place, and even increased some of them in May, but Trump has promised to increase them even more. Three wrongs certainly don’t make a right.

Foreign policy

What does foreign policy have to do with Idaho? U.S. Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, is slated to once again become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a position he held in Trump’s first term.

Risch is going to have his hands full, trying to understand a disjointed Trump policy that could turn over parts of Ukraine to Russia as well as the possibility, according to Trump, of allowing Russia to invade a NATO ally that hasn’t increased its military spending to 2% of its GDP.

Risch might find it difficult to explain why the president is publicly declaring, as Trump did at a press conference during his first term, that he takes the word of Russian President Vladimir Putin over U.S. intelligence agencies.

Risch has had his hands full before, and we have an indication what he’ll do when confronted with a challenge. He’ll kowtow to Trump.

Even though Congress is supposed to act as a check and balance against the executive branch, Risch in 2020 failed to hold to account then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who had fired an inspector general who was investigating Trump’s alleged sale of arms to Saudi Arabia.

The budget

Many conservative Idahoans have expressed their ire over the federal budget deficit, but those concerns went by the wayside when Trump and a Republican-led Congress passed the 2017 GOP tax cuts, which benefited the wealthy and helped contribute $8 trillion to the national debt. Further, the tax cuts did not stimulate the economy to the degree predicted or needed to pay for them.

If history is an indication of future performance, wealthy Idahoans could see a tax cut while the federal deficit increases.

True, Trump’s promise of cutting taxes on Social Security income and on tips would help a large swath of Idahoans, but the consequent loss in tax revenue would contribute to more budget deficits that could be made up only by draconian budget cuts, as suggested by Elon Musk, whom Trump has brought on as a transition team adviser.

Pardons

Some Idahoans who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol could get pardoned by a convicted felon, despite their role in attacking one of our nation’s institutions and forcing all of the politicians there — Republicans and Democrats alike — into hiding. It was all part of an effort to stop the certification of the free and fair 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost — and still won’t concede he lost.

So much for the party of law and order.

Vaccines

Idaho already has the highest rate of vaccine exemption claims in the country. With Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, running all the federal health agencies, we could see national vaccine bans.

Idaho, along with other parts of the country, have seen breakouts of preventable diseases such as whooping cough and measles. What other diseases shall we bring back? Polio? Yellow fever?

Taking him at his word

Is Trump really going to do all of the crazy things he says? Who knows? He lies frequently, and says things for effect and bluster. And he has a track record of not keeping promises (Mexico will pay for the wall, we’ll get rid of Obamacare and replace it with something “beautiful,” we’ll pass a massive infrastructure bill, I have proof the election was rigged). The only signature accomplishments were two things he didn’t promise publicly: tax cuts for the wealthy and stacking the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

It remains to be seen what Trump’s second term will mean for Idahoans — not to mention the country — but one way or another, two-thirds of Idahoans asked for it, and one way or another, they’re going to get it.

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