The split screen in our politics this past week was particularly stunning. Inflation rose to 3.8% as President Donald Trump’s illegal war against Iran drove gas prices to $4.53 a gallon. Under Trump, gas is up 28.4%, airfares are up 20.7%, energy costs are up 17.9% and beef and veal are up 14.8%. Yet when questioned this week about Iran, the president said, “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.”
Americans are hurting in this economy. From farmers to manufacturers to working-class families, people are struggling to get by.
The reality is that Trump has no vision to improve Americans’ lives.
Trump promised to lower costs, bring back American manufacturing and end overseas wars. But the reality is that Trump has no vision to improve Americans’ lives.
Americans are tired of his chaotic economic policies. Recent polling found that 77% of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, say Trump’s policies have made the affordability crisis worse in their communities.
Rather than investing in America, our president is trying to sell out our industries by forming a board of investment with China. We need a leader who has a vision and will build up American industry, not ask China for investment that will devastate American workers.
I just spent three days talking to people in western Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. I went to learn what struggles manufacturers, farmers and workers are experiencing — I got that and so much more. I heard from American manufacturers such as Vitro Glass and Ultium Cells that have faced unfair competition from China and have even been forced to lay off workers because of Trump’s evisceration of critical support for U.S. industry, such as the elimination of the electric vehicle tax credit.
I heard from Ohio farmers being hammered by rising input costs on urea and ammonia due to Trump’s tariffs on U.S. allies, such as Canada, and his disastrous war against Iran.
And I heard from union workers, such as those in UAW Local 1112, which organizes Ultium Cells’ plant in Warren, Ohio. Jobs there are being threatened by the Trump administration’s termination of tax credits for clean energy manufacturing, as well as by Chinese competitors that dump their products in the U.S. market and violate American labor laws.
Meanwhile, Trump went to Beijing accompanied by Wall Street oligarchs who have shown their willingness to sell out American industry so long as the profit margin is big enough.
When I called him out on Fox News last weekend, Trump melted down.
After I talked about the importance of protecting America’s steel, shipbuilding and auto industries, the president suggested on social media that I am a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
In another post the same day, he said it was a “fake narrative” for me to criticize China for setting up factories in the United States under his watch that abuse their workers, circumvent U.S. trade law and reportedly receive Chinese state subsidies.
Americans’ economic woes are not a fake narrative.
At the Port of Cleveland, I saw warehouses full of Chinese steel — at a time when U.S. steelmakers are laying off thousands of workers because they have been forced to idle production.
The Chinese steel was produced by the Shougang Group, which the U.S. government has determined dumps its products into the U.S. at a fraction of true market value and engages in forced labor practices, including participating in the “mass incarceration” of Xinjiang’s Uyghur population.
Trump gutted the Department of Homeland Security’s trade unit responsible for investigating illegal Chinese economic practices when he redirected thousands of federal agents to immigration enforcement. As a result, cases investigating allegations of abuse by Chinese companies have ground to a halt. While Trump slashes enforcement, Chinese companies such as Fuyao Glass are undercutting rival manufacturers that have been forced to shutter plants and lay off workers across the industrial Midwest.
The president’s chaotic policies have also seriously harmed America’s farmers. In Ohio, I heard from farmers who are paying more for fertilizer and farm equipment due to tariffs and the supply-chain shortages resulting from Trump’s war of choice against Iran. Farmers have paid more than $4 billion in higher input costs during Trump’s second term. This hurts not just farmers but also Americans who are paying higher prices at the grocery store.
We have to face the fact that the president is not addressing these challenges and we’re going to have to do it ourselves. America needs to embrace a new economic patriotism.
Rather than prioritizing the interests of Wall Street, we need to focus on Main Street. A New Gilded Age is not inevitable.
All this means setting up a new industrial bank to fund much-needed investments in America’s steel, battery, auto and other industrial sectors. As I heard in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, tariffs alone are simply not sufficient for revitalizing American manufacturing.
A new economic patriotism means establishing a thousand new trade schools and technical institutes to train American workers for the jobs of the future, including in artificial intelligence, and particularly in areas that have been harmed by unfair competition from abroad. We need to lay the foundation for a future where all Americans prosper, thanks to help from such essential programs as free public college, Medicare for All and affordable childcare.
And it means promoting the boldest federal jobs agenda since the New Deal to help American workers deal with the threat posed by AI.
We urgently need to rebuild the American heartland. That must start with rebalancing our economic relationship with China. We need an economy that works for hardworking Americans, led by a president who not only thinks about Americans’ finances and cost of living but is working hard to make those things better.
Rep. Ro Khanna
Ro Khanna represents California's 17th congressional district in the House of Representatives.