An encounter with a small business owner victimized by Republican trade and tariff policies is very revealing

After a recent family visit to Minneapolis, we engaged a Lyft ride to the airport.

Our friendly driver said it was his first week on the job — but it wasn’t his real profession.

Actually, he proudly said, he was the owner of a trucking business with three long-haul refrigerator trucks, one of which he drove himself.

When told we were from Aberdeen, he said he had done business with DemKota Beef in the Hub City, delivering to California (Demkota Beef is on the menu of great restaurants coast-to-coast). His business was doing well.

However, he’s had to park all three trucks because even if he would get an order to deliver to the west, there was no opportunity to get a load to bring back as he returned to Minneapolis. Without the payout going both ways, the cost/revenue equation doesn’t work.

What has changed?

Tariffs, he said. The Pacific ports are quiet and there’s not enough stuff coming in to get him a truckload to make the trip profitable. So, his three trucks sit, with ongoing insurance costs into four figures monthly — a money drain that will eventually put him out of business entirely. I’d assume the market for selling his trucks will not be very good, given the state of the industry

As an immigrant to the USA 20 years ago, he believes (hopes?) his paperwork will insulate him from ICE. He’s made a successful life and his family became a productive part of society.

Now, this Republican tariff lunacy has put him behind the wheel as a Lyft driver just trying to survive. The average Lyft driver makes about $38,000 a year.

These tariff taxes were begun with a big overblown event featuring an incredibly bizarre chart which used a formula completely unrelated to actual trade dynamics. It punishes countries with a calculation that, if I used it, would mean an unfair trade balance exists with the people who cut my hair because they never buy anything from me.

So stupid as to be laughable, but Republicans either supported or quietly acquiesced and now they own it.

The tariff charges are on then off, raised then lowered, on some countries and not others, on some goods but not others (if their business is connected to big donors.) Deadlines come and go with no acknowledgement.

Every Republican with a minimal intelligence knows tariff costs accrue to those receiving the goods in the USA, not to others countries. And, everyone knows the consumer gets the pain eventually.

But apart from the taxation, inflation, and trade policy questions, there are individual victims like our driver. Real people are suffering real consequences as Republicans swallow this policy and swallow any remnant of pride in their public issue integrity.

It’s not only President Trump. They are all responsible.

Do they care that this is lost income that can’t be made up?

Now, multiply that by millions of individuals in thousands of businesses throughout the country. That big picture is self-evidently inevitable and our friendly driver tells a rock-solid story of a family business that Republicans are willing to sacrifice if their alternative is showing some courage and stopping this historically idiotic fantasy.

Mike Levsen is a former mayor of Aberdeen and a regular contributor to The South Dakota Standard.

Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons

The South Dakota Standard is offered freely and is supported by our readers. We have no political or commercial sponsorship. If you'd like to help us continue our mission to advance independent political and social commentary, you can do so by clicking on the "Donate" button that's on the sidebar to your right.