What has Trump economy wrought?

Well, the chickens are finally coming home to roost. As any economist can tell you, economic policy takes time before you start to feel its effect. So for the first two years of the Donald Trump experiment, all the positive economic news of low unemployment and rapid growth we've been experiencing are really the tail end of the Barack Obama economy. Beginning next year. we will get to see exactly what "Trumpism" will bring us, although the first effects are just starting to be seen today with the closure of the GM plants in White Marsh and in other states (“GM closings: Washington had a role,” Nov. 27).

Not to say that President Trump's new tariffs are entirely to blame for GM closing shop. They were more like the straw that broke the camel's back. So after pocketing the billions that the Republican Congress gave them last year and spending it all on corporate bonuses and stock buy-backs, the big corporations are bracing for the disastrous headwinds that supposed "America First" policy has put in their path. So you can't blame them for doing what they're doing. The auto manufacturers (along with almost every other business except the coal industry and the few thousand people they employ) are just trying to ensure their survival. It's nothing personal, as they say, it's just business. If people lose their jobs and homes and wind up living in the street, don't count on the executives at GM to lose any sleep. That's the government's job — or at least, it used to be until President Me-First came along.

I'd say someone should explain to Donald Trump that in today's integrated world, "America First" really means "America Last,” but that would probably be a waste of time. Our elderly president doesn't listen to anyone but the little voice in his head that tells him he is the smartest, fittest and youngest president America has ever had.

William Smith, Baltimore