The Wall Street Journal editorial board weighs in on Trump’s tariffs on Canada and Mexico:
I can’t get past the subscription paywall to read the whole thing, but I trust the headline is a reasonable summation.
WSJ as part of the Rupert Muroch media empire did a lot to make Donald Trump the most powerful man in the world. Are they surprised at what he’s doing? Did they not notice he’s a moron?
Case in point: Some time Thursday Trump ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to open the dams to two California reservoirs. Why? He got it in his head that the water would somehow flow down to Los Angeles and help with the firefighting. And he did this on very short notice without consulting with state authorities.
Photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California. Today, 1.6 billion gallons and, in 3 days, it will be 5.2 billion gallons. Everybody should be happy about this long fought Victory! I only wish they listened to me six years ago – There would have been no fire! pic.twitter.com/Oaz92ZeiTh
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 31, 2025
Except the water won’t magically flow south to Los Angeles, and there’s no readily available way to encourage it to do so. Trump just dumped water that will probably be needed for agriculture this summer, for no good reason. Billions of gallons. The New York Times:
Trump administration officials began releasing significant amounts of water from two dams in California’s Central Valley on Friday in a move that seemed intended to make a political point as President Trump continued to falsely blame the Los Angeles wildfires on water policies in the Democratic-run state.
The releases, as ordered, have sent water toward low-lying land in the Central Valley, and none of it will reach Southern California, water experts said. Nonetheless, President Trump said on Friday that the same action would have prevented the Los Angeles wildfires on the other side of mountain ranges over which that water has no way of traveling.
“Photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California,” President Trump posted on Friday on social media in an apparent reference to the dam releases. “Everybody should be happy about this long fought Victory! I only wish they listened to me six years ago — There would have been no fire!”
Experts expressed dismay on Friday that releasing so much water now served little use for farmers, who typically have higher irrigation needs in the spring and summer months when agricultural fields are abundant. …
... Alarmed, local water managers rushed Thursday to prepare for an abrupt onslaught of water they had not asked for, according to county officials. In an email to the Kings County Board of Supervisors, Jim Henderson, the county’s public works director, said that the water authorities had reached out with “serious concerns” before a flurry of calls to local Republican members of Congress dramatically slowed the flows.
And Elon Musk isn’t much brighter.
“They” didn’t keep the water from the people of California. Trump just took it away from the people of California. If there’s a drought in California this summer it’s going to hit California agriculture really, really hard. A publication dedicated to San Joaquin Valley water issues totally blasted the water release.
“Every drop belongs to someone,” said Kaweah River Watermaster Victor Hernandez. “The reservoir may belong to the federal government, but the water is ours. If someone’s playing political games with this water, it’s wrong.”
It was no game on Thursday when area water managers were given about an hour’s notice that the Army Corps planned to release water up to “channel capacity,” the top amount rivers can handle, immediately.
The Army Corps later agreed to more measured releases, alleviating a mad scramble to alert first responders and have crews on standby in case river banks were breached and levees overtopped, as happened during the 2023 floods.
See also:
Politico, Trump says he opened California’s water. Local officials say he nearly flooded them.
Daily Kos, For the Sake of a Photo Op, Trump Tries to Ruin CA Farmers that Probably Voted for Him
Digby, Hullabaloo, Make It Stop
There are a several big reservoirs in the Ozarks and Appalachia, mostly built during the New Deal to provide hydroelectric power. If you’ve lived near one, you appreciate that the people who schedule the release of water need to know what they are doing.
So, yes, this is really stupid. And speaking of Elon Musk and the California fires, see Federal firefighters fought L.A.’s blazes. Then came resignation offers.by Daniel Wu at WaPo. It begins,
Justin Brown had done a grueling stint at the perimeter of the Hughes Fire, battling last week to keep the blaze from spilling into towns in northern Los Angeles County. He was still sore Tuesday when an email from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management arrived in his inbox, warning of upcoming cuts to the civil service and presenting an offer to resign from his job
“It was a slap in the face,” Brown said.
The article goes on to say that the letter was a huge blow to morale for the firefighters.
Speaking more of Musk, he now indeed has full access to the government payment system.
And back to the tariffs, Trump did indeed sign executive orders imposing 25% tariffs on all goods from Mexico and Canada, a 10% tariff on Canadian oil exports, and a 10% tariff on goods from China. Nobody who knows anything about economics thinks this makes any sense. See Paul Krugman, The End of North America and Why Has Trump Gone Soft on China and Hard on Canada?