Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who is mulling a run for president in 2020, said he’s concerned that President Donald Trump’s trade policies are hurting the economy of America’s second-most populous city.
Increased tariffs on steel are leading to rising costs for construction and infrastructure projects, threatening jobs in the building trades, Garcetti said. The Trump administration’s levies on everything from Chinese-made electronics to shampoo, meanwhile, may lead to a slowdown at the city’s port, the largest cargo handler in North America.
“We’re worried—this is a not political statement,” Garcetti, a Democrat, said in an interview Monday at Bloomberg’s Los Angeles bureau. “We do see some headwinds coming. We have so much momentum in our economy that is linked to the Pacific Rim, to the cheap price of commodities.”
Garcetti, 47, said he would decide early next year whether he would run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. The mayor has been touring the country, including early primary states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, to prepare for a bid. He’s also been raising money for candidates in the mid-term congressional elections, raising his profile nationally.
Should he run, Garcetti said his pitch to voters in other cities—and in crucial rust-belt states—would focus on jobs and on Trump’s performance.
“For the carpenter, your construction projects are slowing,” he said. “For the farmer, you’re losing money out of your pocket for your soybeans. For the folks for whom he was going to bring those air conditioning manufacturing jobs back in Indiana, he lied to you.”
Garcetti said he hopes issues such as housing costs, infrastructure, the minimum wage and making community college free for students would be addressed by anyone running.
Tunnels, Blackouts
In the wide-ranging interview, Garcetti said he was working with Elon Musk’s Boring Co. and hopes to have approvals for a test of the entrepreneur’s transportation tunnel approved in West Los Angeles by the end of summer.
The mayor said a blackout prompted by high temperatures over Fourth of July week was a “wake-up call” about the city’s municipally-owned power grid. He said investment in power lines and equipment, particularly in the normally hotter San Fernando Valley, had helped soften the blow, but the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power may need gear designed for desert temperatures rather than the city’s more temperate weather, because of climate change.
“These heat events are no longer once every 1,000 years,” Garcetti said. “They’re happening every single year.”
Job Concerns
Phillip Sanfield, a spokesman for the Port of Los Angeles, said jobs are a concern for workers there. China accounted for more than half of the overall cargo value at the facility—about $145 billion worth last year. At least 15 percent of the cargo overall is exposed to the new tariffs, he said.
It’s too early tell the impact of the new tariffs on jobs, said William Yu, an economist at the University of California, Los Angeles. But his hunch is that the levies will indeed pinch labor.
“This is a very good question and an important one,’’ Yu said. “Like the mayor said, there should be some negative impact.’’
Garcetti said “green” jobs, including solar installation and water conservation, should be a source of growth nationally. Los Angeles, he said, created 30,000 such jobs over the past five years.
“It’s not just in blue cities on the coast,” Garcetti said “Iowa is red and 31 percent of their power comes from wind. There’s great jobs there, but we have no national leadership.”
Garcetti said he told Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom, whom he endorsed last week, that the state should double its $330 million in annual tax credits film and TV production. That could lured more jobs from other states.
“We could do more than just arresting the loss,” Garcetti said. “We could bring the whole industry back.”
At home, Garcetti has faced criticism that the city hasn’t moved fast enough to address chronic homelessness even after two voter-approved tax increases in the past two years generated hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending. The mayor said the city has identified more than two dozen locations for new emergency homeless shelters that he has proposed and only “one or two” have been controversial, a change from past levels of opposition.
