(C) Ohio Capital Journal
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Trump tariffs loom. Many Ohio leaders don't want to talk about it • Ohio Capital Journal [1]
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Date: 2025-04-09
For a week, global financial markets have plunged and swung wildly as a result of President Donald Trump’s huge tariffs. Already, auto-sector layoffs have started at a company with a big Ohio presence.
One Republican Ohio U.S. Senator seems to have embraced the tariffs. The other says he’s talking to concerned parties about them. One candidate for the GOP governor nomination in 2026 also embraced the tariffs, while a Democratic candidate condemned them. The others who are either in the Republican field or potentially so didn’t comment.
The global financial markets on Tuesday were regaining some of their value after Chinese companies started buying stocks to stabilize them. But already, Trump’s 25% tariff on vehicles had slowed imports and temporarily shut down some factories, the New York Times reported.
Stellantis, the Netherlands-based company that owns Dodge, Chrysler, and Jeep, laid off 900 people temporarily at powertrain and stamping plants in Michigan and Indiana. If a trade war persists, the company’s roughly 2,600 union workers at its Jeep plant in Toledo could also eventually be affected.
In addition, the tariffs, which are taxes on imports, are expected to raise consumer prices by 2.3%, according to the Budget Lab at Yale University.
Since Trump began announcing the tariffs last week, he’s been accused of serious mathematical bungling.
Economists at the conservative American Enterprise Institute said that the tariffs themselves make no sense. But even if they did, they said, the formula on which they’re based contains a math error that inflates the tariffs fourfold.
Meanwhile, all the volatility created by the tariffs has created uncertainty that can make business planning all but impossible, Nobel Prize-winning columnist Paul Krugman told the New York Times.
Even so, Trump isn’t backing down, and he’s not admitting any mistakes. That has billionaires who supported Trump’s election pleading with officials in his administration to persuade him to change course.
Given the implications for the Ohio economy, one might think the state’s leaders would weigh in. But after queries were made Monday of the sitting governor, four likely candidates to run for that office in 2026 and the state’s two U.S. senators, only three responded.
The officials were asked whether they supported the Trump tariffs and what they would say to Ohioans who’ve seen their retirement accounts depleted as the markets plunged.
Trump is selling the import taxes as painful medicine to bring back manufacturing. The current and would-be Ohio officials were also asked how long people should have to suffer before that happens.
One response came from the campaign of pharmaceutical entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who is seeking the 2026 GOP nomination to be governor. Ramaswamy left a lead position with Elon Musk’s government-slashing “Department of Government Efficiency” to mount his campaign.
“President Trump endorsed Vivek because he’s laser-focused on an America First, Ohio First agenda, including sparking a manufacturing boom by cutting red tape, building a skilled workforce, and unleashing the energy dominance needed to power Ohio’s economic revival,” Ramaswamy campaign manager Jonathan Ewing said in an email. “For decades, Ohio workers have been hit hard by America’s manufacturing exodus, and it’s time to hit back. Vivek is focused on advancing bold, no-nonsense solutions to restore opportunity for all hardworking Ohioans and make our state an economic powerhouse once again.”
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, who is also seeking the GOP nomination, didn’t respond.
Governor’s Office Press Secretary Dan Tierney was asked where Gov. Mike DeWine stood on Trump’s tariffs. He was also asked for a press contact for newly appointed Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel, so the same questions could be put to that person. Tierney didn’t respond.
DeWine appointed Tressel to fill the lieutenant governor’s spot after appointing former Lt. Gov. Jon Husted to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by J.D. Vance when he became vice president. Tressel hasn’t announced a candidacy for governor, but as a former football coach of a national-championship Ohio State Buckeye team, there has been speculation that he has the popularity to run.
Dr. Amy Acton, a Columbus-area physician who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, said Trump was needlessly making life harder for average Ohioans.
“Our leaders should be solving problems not creating them,” she said in an email. “Ohioans across the state who are struggling with the cost of living shouldn’t have to worry about our President starting reckless trade wars and causing chaos with tariffs that raise costs and make our lives even harder. We need a real plan to lower costs and raise wages that starts with listening to local communities — not simply picking fights to fake toughness.
Husted’s office commented on tariffs, but it didn’t say whether he supported Trump’s.
“Ohio is a strong Made-in-America state, and the senator is talking with and listening to Ohio job creators and workers all the time about what policies, including tariffs and tariff relief, they may need in order to get the inputs required to produce goods here at home,” Deputy Chief of Staff Jess Andrews said in an email. “He was on the ground alongside Ohio workers recently doing just that, and he is sharing these priorities with the administration directly.”
Ohio’s other new Republican senator, Bernie Moreno, didn’t respond to questions for this story, but he appears to be embracing the Trump tariffs on social media.
“Career politicians like (former Vice President Mike Pence) are part of the problem, they did nothing for decades while our industrial sector was gutted,” he said on X the day the tariffs were implemented. “President Trump is finally reversing their failed policies and fighting back for American workers. That’s exactly what we saw today.”
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