I’m concerned about high inflation, especially for food, both if Trump implements his promised tariffs on imported goods and because of what’s already started with much of our immigrant labor force.
A lot of our food is imported - look at the labels on your fruits and vegetables. Bananas and many other foods are going to cost more year round and other fruits and vegetables will be much more seasonal than they are now because of the cost to import them with either US or retaliatory tariffs.
I read yesterday that the price of coffee has hit an all-time high just with Trump’s threat of a tariff on Colombia.
Immigrants, both documented and undocumented, make up a large proportion of our agricultural work force, from dairy to fruit and vegetables to meat processing, plus a large part of construction labor. U.S. unemployment is already low and most Americans wouldn’t want to do the difficult work in a field or a slaughterhouse, especially for the wages being paid for current migrant labor - so we may have crops rotting in the fields or meat shortages because of lack of workers.
For more on this see
Trump has pardoned or commuted the sentences of people who violently attacked police officers, broke into the Capitol and threatened the lived of Congress and the vice president.
He also summarily fired over a dozen federal Inspectors General, who are supposed to be independent and objective watchdogs within government agencies. See Trump fires multiple federal inspectors general in overnight purge - CBS News. He was legally required to provide Congress 30 days notice, as well as a “substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons.” I’m very concerned that he’s appointing syncophants throughout the government who will bow to him instead of standing up for the Constitution and the law. See also Inside the Trump White House's intense screening of job-seekers | AP News
World Relief, a Christian international aid agency, said this morning “Late on Friday, January 24, World Relief was notified by the U.S. Department of State that all federally funded activities providing initial resettlement support to nearly 4,000 refugees we are currently serving must stop effective immediately.” This is a part of Trump’s decree that all federal grants and loans be frozen for an unspecified period of time. Funding is the domain of Congress, not the President, so this directive is probably unconstitutional - but it’s causing confusion, hardship and uncertainty in scores of organizations and government departments. See Trump's funding freeze creates widespread confusion
Trump repeatedly shows a complete disregard for decency, the Constitution and the law.
As a Christian, I know that the throughout The Bible, Old Testament and New, God commands us to care for the disadvantaged and says numerous times to help and welcome “strangers”, which includes immigrants. See Mt. 25:31-46, Lev. 19:33-4 (“You must love him as yourself”), Heb. 13:2, Ex. 22:21, Ex. 23:9, Ex. 12:49, Ps. 94:6ff, Dt. 10:17-19, Dt. 24:17-22, and numerous others.
The vast majority of immigrants, whether documented or not, are like most of us, ordinary people who simply want to live in safety, support their families, have decent, affordable medical care and have their children educated. Many of them fled political instability, severe economic difficulties, or violence. A better, more humane (and more Christian) solution than mass deportations would be to expedite means for undocumented aliens to be legalized.
Trump appears to primarily care about himself and those who he can use to maximize his power and bolster his self image.
