President Trump has adroitly played a sort of chess – or chicken, perhaps – with Democrats over the government shutdown. That battle has taken on additional nuance as another conflict continues over the administration’s controversial tariffs, imposed for national security reasons. President Trump has announced he will allocate tens of millions of tariff receipts to ensure that food subsidies for nutritionally insecure pregnant women and children are not interrupted by the government shutdown.
For years, progressive pundits and left-wing extremists have labeled all conservatives as racist, misogynistic, callous elites who lack compassion for the nation’s poor and downtrodden. The prioritization by the Trump administration of the poorest and most vulnerable of society – without regard to skin color and favoring women – flies in the face of these tiresome hate tropes. The irony will not be lost on voters.
The money diverted from tariffs to food will flow to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program, which supplies debit cards to low-income families to purchase healthy, whole-food staples, including baby food, infant formula, yogurt, bread, and vegetables. The current need to continue the program amounts to $146 million per week. Both the USDA and White House have pledged that the program will not be disrupted.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced forcefully:
“The Democrats are so cruel in their continual votes to shut down the government that they forced the WIC program for the most vulnerable women and children to run out this week…. Thankfully, President Trump and the White House have identified a creative solution to transfer resources from Section 232 tariff revenue to this critical program.”
The Trump administration is putting its tariff money where its political mouth is. Democrats howl that Republicans are fascists and Trump a Nazi, but the President walks the proverbial Christian walk by ensuring the nation’s most vulnerable and needy citizens continue to receive food assistance.
Perhaps this was the plan – to force an interruption of benefits that the Left would then point to as proof of Donald Trump’s draconian insensitivity. By earmarking receipts from tariffs (even as progressive efforts to block their collection continue in courtrooms) for WIC recipients, the administration has reversed the roles of villain and philanthropist. Republicans are prioritizing the poor.
Further damaging Democratic credibility are credible complaints that the federal shutdown is motivated by a showdown not between the two political parties, but between two Democrats: Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his expected challenger, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Many observers allege that Schumer took furnacefuls of political heat for caving on previous budget negotiations, and now is digging in his heels to forestall AOC from sweeping him into the ashbin when midterm elections arrive.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has boldly fanned the funereal flames of this internecine kerfuffle, stating in a Newsmax interview:
“What they’ve done by shutting the government down is they have stopped the WIC program…. All those programs are going to stop. They have stopped now because Chuck Schumer decided to play politics for selfish reasons…. It’s really shameful.”
Still, the perpetual blame game has attracted criticisms of President Trump even for his use of tariffs to fund WIC. CNN reported that Dr. Georgia Machell, CEO of the National WIC Association, complained that “Families need long-term stability, not short-term uncertainty…. We still don’t know how much funding this measure provides, how quickly states will receive it, or how long it will sustain operations.” CNN also reported that Chris Towner, policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, “questioned the legality of the Trump administration directing tariff funds to WIC.”
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For Trump detractors, nothing the president does will ever please them – not lower prescription prices, researching the causes of autism, properly policing borders, reducing urban crime, or…. feeding hungry pregnant women and their babies with revenues from tariffs that are flooding federal coffers.
The White House continues to outmaneuver hyper-critical attacks with common sense and determination. Allocating money to ensure the country’s most disadvantaged need not worry over partisan budget rankling is a win-win, no matter what the naysayers neigh.