How tariffs could impact local businesses
Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz….it’s Tuesday, February 4th >>>>
President Trump's proposed tariffs bring uncertainty to San Diego’s border economy. More on that next. But first... let’s do the headlines….
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Protests against President Trump’s immigration crackdown continued across California yesterday (Monday), including here in San Diego County.
In Oceanside, protesters gathered at an intersection, waving flags and holding signs.
Protesters are responding to an increase in federal immigration operations throughout the state, as well as President Trump’s executive order threatening birthright citizenship.
More protests are planned throughout the region for the rest of this week.
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Hundreds of members of Black Student Unions in the San Diego Unified School District gathered yesterday (Monday) to commemorate the beginning of Black History Month.
Students of all ages shared speeches and poetry, including Patrick Henry High School freshman Maliah Mims.
“Throughout history, black individuals have broken barriers and created opportunities where there once were none. This was not an easy task for them. The people who paved the way for us did not have Wi-Fi or even basic human rights. Yet they still managed to change the world. Their contributions have shaped the world where we live today and their legacy continues to continue to inspire us.”
The Black History Month flag will be raised at the Eugene Brucker Education Center for the month of February.
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Wet weather is in the forecast later this week.
According to the National Weather Service, rain could arrive tomorrow (Wednesday) and last off and on until Friday.
Most of San Diego County will see partly cloudy skies through the week.
In the mountain areas and along the coast temperatures will be in the mid 60s and in the desert highs will be in the mid 50s.
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From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now.Stay with me for more of the local news you need.
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More than 80 billion dollars in cross-border trade flows between San Diego and Tijuana each year. Local business leaders talked to reporter Gustavo Solis about how President Trump’s threatened tariffs on Mexico could impact the border region.
We live in a world of integrated supply chains – where components of one product cross the border multiple times before it hits the market. “Toyota is a good example. The Toyota Tacoma, that gets assembled between San Diego and Tijuana. You see parts cross the border maybe five six times before the truck is even fully assembled.” That’s Jessica Anderson. Interim president and CEO of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce. She spent the weekend hearing from businesses on both sides of the border that are worried about how tariffs might impact this finely tuned system. “For some, it’s can my business even survive this? It’s not even simply about do I just need to raise prices a little bit or maybe I don’t put that new product out or hold off on that new product launch. This is life and death for some businesses.” Thankfully for those businesses, the tariffs aren’t happening. For now. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Monday announced a last-minute deal with President Trump to avoid tariffs. She promised to send more National Guard troops to stop the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. … And Trump said he’d try to stop the flow of illegal guns into Mexico. They agreed to pause the tariffs for one month. But the threat remains. And local business leaders say the continued uncertainty is bad for our region. Gustavo Solis, KPBS News
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Late Friday, the Pentagon announced cultural heritage months, like Black History Month, would no longer be celebrated.
Military reporter Andrew Dyer spoke to one activist who says the Trump administration is waging a culture war in the military.
On Friday – the day before Black History Month began – Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth canceled all such future observances, calling them an effort to divide the military and put one group ahead of others. Army veteran Kristofer Goldsmith is the founder of the Task Force Butler Institute and Veterans Fighting Fascism. He says these new restrictions can only hurt the Pentagon’s recruitment and retention goals. “You can’t put a poster of MLK on the wall and appreciate a civil rights hero because he’s Black? That’s something that, me as a white man, when I was young, I would have felt really uncomfortable with. I would have recognized, like, oh, I’m now part of a racist organization. And that doesn't align with my American values.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment. Andrew Dyer, KPBS News.
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Ruth Ben-Ghiat is well versed in authoritarian leaders. She wrote the book Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present. She spoke with public matters reporter Amita Sharma.
So we are two weeks into President Trump's second term. So far, he has frozen federal funding, then rescinded the directive. But it's still unclear what will happen on that front. He has issued executive orders that include stopping funding to schools that teach about racism, but don't teach about patriotism, office offering buyouts to 2 million federal employees and sending undocumented people to detention centers. What moves has the President made so far that trouble you the most and what gives you hope? All of it troubles me because this overreach of executive authority, this immediate, the speed at which he's doing things is unusual. And we also have what I consider a national emergency in which a private citizen, Elon Musk and some surrogates who seem to be wired, reported they're like college student age, have taken control of portions of the federal bureaucracy's payment systems, like the General Services Administration, and have locked out federal employees from computer systems. And that is something totally new in the authoritarian playbook. I am hopeful because we're seeing from within the FBI, from within the Civil Service, resistance to this encroachment of executive authority, these politically motivated purges of career, honest, ethical professionals. This process of mass deportations is there. Tens of thousands of people here in San Diego will be affected. Trump's Cabinet members have also spoken about limiting legal immigration. Connect the history of strongmen to what we're seeing on this immigration front. I have quotes from Mussolini in my book Strongmen that sound like they're from today in America or from Orban's Hungary, where Mussolini complained that what he called black, brown and yellow people were having too many babies, threatening white Christian civilization. And so the response has been often to either detain them and other enemies of the state, so called in prisons, or to deport them or persecute them in other ways. Speaking of prisons, Trump has pardoned 1,500 people who were prosecuted for participating in the January 6 insurrection. Federal prosecutors in San Diego worked on over 60 of those cases here and elsewhere in the country. What message do the pardons send to those prosecutors and the people who were convicted? And what do they say about the state of our democracy? There could be no clear signal of what values are going to be privileged in deciding to pardon people who assaulted the temple of our democracy, the Capitol, and assaulted Capitol Police officers and had weapons and defecated. Excuse me, but it's the truth. Inside the Capitol building, trashed everything. And these were thugs, these were vandals. And now they're being pardoned and treated as patriots. This has been part of the messaging, is that these are the patriots. So Professor Ben Guyot, eight years ago, a resistance movement mobilized to counteract Trump as he started his first term. I've spoken to local scientists about potentially losing their funding and some federal workers who received buyout offers, they wonder a lot who is advocating for them. There's a belief that there's no counterweight to the executive orders, that the opposition has almost rolled over. How do you interpret what's happening? I believe that may change. The thing about now is that we are not even. We're like two weeks into this, and each day has seemed like a week in itself. And so we have to get our bearings and remember that we have a history of effective protest. You know, in 2017 and 2020, Black Lives Matter protests were overwhelmingly peaceful and involved over 20 million people and had an electoral outcome in the 2022 midterms. So we have this history also the civil rights movement, that's very important of protest. And so I wouldn't. Just because it's not happening in the first two weeks doesn't mean it won't happen at all. It's well documented that Americans are low information. They're unable to answer the most basic questions about politics, history, the economy, and the world. What does that signal for America's ability to preserve democracy? The stakes are huge, whether you individually vote or not. That's your voice. That's your moment to help to change history. And we see the stakes of not doing that, of kind of abdicating that. Thank you so much for speaking with me today. It's a pleasure.
That was historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat speaking with KPBS’s Amita Sharma.
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Yesterday (monday) The San Diego City Council adopted new rules governing the sale of affordable housing. Metro reporter Andrew Bowen says the goal is to keep those homes affordable.
The ordinance covers properties with deed restrictions that limit rents to affordable levels. When owners intend to sell, they'll have to give first right of refusal to a list of qualified buyers that build and maintain affordable housing. Councilmember Kent Lee said each year, roughly 200 affordable homes see their deed restrictions expire, meaning they could become unaffordable. I think it's fair to compare the challenge that we have to having a hole in San Diego's affordable housing bucket, where no matter how much we keep pouring in through new affordable deed restricted units, we're simultaneously losing existing affordable homes. Even proponents of the ordinance acknowledged its limitations, saying more funding for affordable housing is also needed. Andrew Bowen, KPBS news.
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That’s it for the podcast today. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. I’m Debbie Cruz. Thanks for listening and have a great day.
