To the Editor,
On March 6th, this website published my Letter to the Editor focusing on how President Trump’s tariffs might affect Mohawk Valley residents in terms of increased prices at the grocery store.
Today, I’d like to turn the focus to how the retaliatory tariffs from Canada, China, and the European Union might affect employment, or actually unemployment, in the Mohawk Valley.
A recent (March 15th) story in the New York Times presented an analysis of data (from Lightcast and the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages) showing how many jobs in each US county might be affected by retaliatory tariffs along with which presidential candidate (Trump or Harris) won the majority of that county’s votes. Their conclusion was that counties that went for Trump could possibly lose a higher number and percentage of jobs than counties that went for Harris. The potential job losses for Mohawk Valley counties are as follows.
Herkimer — 900
Montgomery — 2,000
Oneida — 6,200
Fulton — 900
Otsego — 1,000
Schoharie — 300
I think it’s important for the reader to note three things. First, retaliatory tariffs are those imposed in response to the original tariffs Trump imposed and would not likely be imposed now had he not made the first move with tariffs. Second, these retaliatory tariffs are likely to be targeting areas where Trump has a lot of support. That makes it more likely he’ll pay attention to upset voters and/or their representatives in Congress than if the upset voters and representatives are from areas where Harris had a lot of support. Third, since this story was published in the Times, the European Union has said it will delay its tariffs for one month. The numbers do not reflect this delay.
It’s also important to note the story includes the following passage.
“These totals are the number of jobs in industries that foreign countries have targeted with their tariffs — not the number of jobs that will actually be lost because of tariffs, which is likely to be significantly lower. But industries hit by retaliatory tariffs are likely to sell fewer goods on foreign markets, which may mean lower profits and job losses.”
I wholeheartedly encourage the reader to check out this story and the accompanying data themselves and have provided the link to the story below just for that purpose.
Michael McCarthy
Little Falls, NY