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JULY 27, 2018, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5 KeizerOpinion KEIZERTIMES.COM Yes to intermodal transload facility The Brooks-Hopmere area is one of the proposed sites in the Willamette Valley for an Intermodal Transloading Facility. Millersburg on the north side of Albany is another site close to our area. Transloading is the process of transferring a shipment from one mode of transportation to an- other—in this case, from truck to rail, to be ship- ping to ports in Portland and in Washington state. The Oregon Shipping Group is as- sisting with the Oregon Port of Wil- lamette’s proposal for the facility. That group represents 50 business stake- holders and is led by Kevin Mannix. The proposal to the Oregon Depart- ment of Transportation included sup- porting letters from a variety of area business organizations as well as the agriculture industry. The rationale for transloading fa- cilities in the Willamette Valley is to more effi ciently move products to foreign markets. Currently farm prod- ucts are shipped via truck to ports for shipment overseas. The freeways in and around the Portland area are experiencing increased traffi c counts which results in higher shipping costs for producers whose goods are stuck in traffi c. It is more effi cient for producers to bypass clogged roadways in the metro- politan area by utilizing a transloading facility here in the mid-Willamette Valley. If Brooks-Hopmere wins the nod from the state, which will hand down its decision in late September, it will be a win for ag business here in the northern valley but certainly also a win for ag business in the southern Willamette Valley; shipping to Brooks would be cheaper than going all the way to ports in Portland or points north. The Oregon Ship- ping Ground has laid the groundwork with adjourning commercial and residential neighbors. They have solicited com- ments and ideas, particu- larly when it comes to the Brooks-Interstate 5 interchange. If Brooks- Hopmere is chosen as the site for the mid-Willamette Valley site there certainly would be improve- ments at that interchange. One should not expect improvement on the level of the recent Woodburn re-do. The proposed facility at Brooks- Hopmere is not designed to add lots of jobs. As currently design the facil- ity would feature a handful of posi- tions. Though it is not heavy with jobs there are other benefi ts—in- creased global trade for western Or- egon growers, fewer big rig trucks on Portland area freeways (this is impor- tant because most Keizerites travel to Portland occasionally) and, eventually an improved interchange that many north Keizer residents use. The proposed sites—one next to May Trucking Company on the west side of the freeway, the other north of Brooklake Road next to the NOR- PAC plant—will not adversely affect those who live or have businesses in the area. Agriculture is Oregon’s primary business and anything that can make it more competitive is a good thing. We support the Mid-Willamette Val- ley Intermodal Transloading Facility whether it is approved for the west or the east side of the freeway at Brooks- Hopmere. —LAZ our opinion Let’s end need for clean-up We congratulate Richard Boyes on being named Volunteer of the Quarter by the Keizer City Council earlier this week. Boyes was nominated by mem- bers of the West Keizer Neighbor- hood Association for his work over the past years collecting trash along Chemawa Road from River Road to Keizer Rapids Park. The vol- unteer works on his own to assure Keizer keeps up its neat and tidy look. It is unfortunate that anyone has to clean trash from our roadways. After decades of anti-littering mes- sages, especially from an owl (Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute), one would think that private-sector street trash collectors would be a thing of the past. It is not, as evidenced by Mr. Boyes efforts and by those who adopt a street. Each year volunteers help SOLVE clear tons of trash from Oregon beaches. If volunteers didn’t chip in and pick up wrappers, bottles, cans and other debris, our streets and beaches would look like a landfi ll. We grew up hearing the ‘don’t pollute’ message. If we threw a can out the car window or along the curb, we were swiftly comforted. In other words, we were shamed into picking up our cast-off and dispos- ing of it correctly. We all need to be guardians of our planet, not to mention our neighborhoods and stand up to those who so cavalierly use public lands as their personal waste basket. There’s a place for everything. We adults have to give a hoot and shame those, of any age, who choose to litter. Until the day comes when no one litters, we will rely upon the concerned volunteers like Richard Boyes. —LAZ Tariffs stuck on the spin cycle By VERONIQUE DE RUGY American fi rms cheering for pro- tectionism in the form of tariffs on their foreign competitors should be careful what they wish for. As they say, “What goes around comes around.” Case in point: The American washer and dryer manufacturer Whirlpool Corp. Last January, the Trump administration imposed a penalty on Americans who buy foreign-made wash- ers. The administration argued that the need to protect our domestic washer makers from com- petition required the imposition, for a period of three years, of a 20 percent duty on the fi rst 1.2 million imported washing machines each year and a 50 percent duty on quan- tities above that threshold. Whirlpool loved the idea of getting a leg up on two of its most fi erce competitors and increasingly consumer darlings, South Korean Samsung Electron- ics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. Why bother trying to produce goods that your consumers want to buy when Uncle Sam can make your competi- tors’ stuff artifi cially more expensive? Marc Bitzer, the chief execu- tive offi cer of Whirlpool, touted this protection as “without any doubt, a positive catalyst for Whirlpool.” Of course, it’s not so good for American consumers who must now pay a pen- alty if they insist on buying the for- eign-made washers that they prefer over American-made washers. One result of this penalty, according to The Wall Street Journal, is that washer prices have risen by about 20 per- cent since January. From Whirlpool’s standpoint, the policy seemed like a raging success. Imports of large resi- dential washers fell from a monthly average of 350,000 in 2017 to an average of 161,000 each month of 2018 through April. But it’s not only American consumers who are harmed by Trump’s tariffs. American businesses also get hurt in the process when consumers, having to fork over hundreds of dollars more for washers, must forgo the purchase of other products that they would have otherwise bought. This isn’t surprising since tariffs always divert resources toward government- protected (read: favored) businesses and away from unprotected ones (read: everyone else). Here’s the thing: When you cheer for protectionism, you never know when you might become the victim of the next round of consumer-pun- ishing tariffs. That’s what happened to Whirlpool, which is now a victim of the 25 percent steel tariffs imposed by the administration to protect the steel industry from foreign competi- tion. It’s funny how that works. Whirl- pool isn’t too happy about this par- ticular version of protectionism. The steel tariffs increase the company production costs for washers and dry- ers. And some of these higher pro- duction costs are covered in the form of higher prices for consumers. As a result, since the Trump tariffs were announced and set in place, prices have gone up across brands and the demand for washers has fallen. Meanwhile, appliance-repair busi- tho opinion of othors nesses are making a killing as con- sumers put off the purchase of new appliances in favor of the expensive (but relatively cheaper) repairs they wouldn’t have purchased in a not- so-long-ago pre-tariff past. Poor protect-me-but-not-thee Whirlpool; this sad turn of events has forced the company to reconsider many of its hopes for expansion. With imports down, the company planned to add workers at its washer plant in expectation of a new rush of tariff-induced washer sales. Not so fast. Thanks to the many tariffs ap- plied to over $90 billion of imports from China and other places (in- cluding inputs and raw materials like steel), Whirlpool not only didn’t add 1,300 workers to its Clyde factory in Ohio; it has actually reduced its pro- duction. It’s therefore unsurprising that Whirlpool’s share price is down 15 percent since the washer tariffs were put in place. That’s in spite of the massive cut in the corporate in- come tax rate from 35 to 21 percent and other tax cuts. The bottom line is that a govern- ment that’s powerful enough to pro- tect some producers against foreign competitors is powerful enough to protect other producers—protection that winds up infl icting net damage on most or even all producers. As for the 6.5 million workers in Ameri- ca’s steel-consuming manufacturing plants (including Whirlpool’s), they can be added—along with all con- sumers—to the laundry list of long- suffering victims of cronyism that the Washington, D.C., swamp has left out to dry. (Croators Syndicato) Trump’s foreign policy style rankles Keizertimes Whoatland Publishing Corp. 142 Chomala Road N. • Koizor, Orogon 97303 Phono: 503.390.1051 • lll.koizortimos.com MANAGING EDITOR Eric A. Holald oditor@koizortimos.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR SUBSCRIPTIONS Dorok Wiloy nols@koizortimos.com ADVERTISING Paula Mosoloy advortising@koizortimos.com PRODUCTION MANAGER & GRAPHIC DESIGNER EDITOR & PUBLISHER Lyndon Zaitz publisher@keizertimes.com Ono yoar: $25 in Marion County, $33 outsido Marion County, $45 outsido Orogon PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY Publication No: USPS 679-430 Androl Jackson graphics@koizortimos.com POSTMASTER Sond addross changos to: LEGAL NOTICES logals@koizortimos.com Koizortimos Circulation BUSINESS MANAGER 142 Chomala Road N. Loah Stovons Koizor, OR 97303 billing@koizortimos.com RECEPTION Lori Boyolor INTERNS Poriodical postago paid at Salom, Orogon Random Pondragon Casoy Chaffi n facobook.com/koizortimos tlittor.com/koizortimos After a two-hour, private, no- observers meeting between a Rus- sian dictator and what looks like his understudy, the news conference that followed required no training in body language interpretation to conclude which one of them en- joyed the upper hand. The one, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin presented himself with a cocky smile built on a confi dent, in- charge stride while the other, President Donald J. Trump, appeared ner- vous, petulant, unsure, and emasculated. The two stood at sepa- rate podiums for a press confer- ence where the American president displayed deference to his Russian counterpart, lavishing high praise on him while assuming a subor- dinate role. In answering the very fi rst question from an audience of reporters, Trump blamed disputes and problems between the U.S. and Russia on his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, and his challenger for the presidency, Hill- ary Clinton. He also recognized Putin for being honest in claiming Russia did not interfere in our 2016 election and repudiated his own in- telligence appointees. Then, Trump returned to Wash- ington, D.C. and the next day changed one word in his give- away to Putin before the whole world. He followed over the next week by reversing himself and, to date, has done so multiple times (as before Helsinki and now after). Meanwhile, we’ve gotten familiar— from his 18-months in the White House—that whatever he says the fi rst time is what he really believes. What’s become clear is that Trump listens primarily to himself, some- times to daughter Ivanka, but is most infl uenced by Putin, a KGB agent dedicated to returning Rus- sian to the Soviet Union-era and its former sphere of infl u- ence, adding, presently, and his greatest ambi- tion, the West, too. If the reader does not know it already, ev- ery objective fact relat- ing to America’s special counsel, Robert Muel- ler and his team of U.S. assistants, had already disclosed that Putin’s Russia helped Trump into the presidency. Putin has also confi rmed that he wanted Trump elected to the presidency. At this juncture in U.S. foreign affairs, it must be remembered that, in Phila- delphia during the 1787 conven- tion, the authors of what became the U.S. Constitution, the founding of our democratic-republic design, worried a lot about foreign corrup- tion of the new nation’s presidency. The month of July, 2018, has provided, compliments of Donald Trump, other mind-boggling ac- tions besides his throw away in Fin- land. He also denounced the Euro- pean Union as our “foe,” threatened to terminate NATO, wrecked the US-led world trading system, and intervened in the United Kingdom and German politics in support of extremist and pro-Russian forces. These matters in addition to his refusal to stand up to protect and preserve the integrity of our voting system. Is our sovereignty about to become a victim of a Russian’s am- gono h. mcintyro bitions? Will we let it? Can we actually wait for an- other election several months away when our president, who swore to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States of America” has subordinated himself to Putin? Special counsel Robert Mueller now investigates how deep and destructive the union between Trump and Putin is. In the mean- time, Trump has invited Putin to visit the White House for another private meeting where, it’s surmised based on Helsinki, the fate of more than 320 million Americans will re- main a secret. The world’s people want to avoid a nuclear holocaust and that’s why it is critically important that our president maintain an open line with Russia’s president. However, because Vladimir Putin is a dicta- tor who seeks to spread his power, he sees the West’s democratic prin- ciples and practices as standing in his way. Hence, to help himself, he’s using Trump, a naïve, self-centered leader who admires his strongman status. Those who value our way of life, our laws, institutions, norms and freedoms, are encouraged to give serious consideration to what’s at stake before willfully surrendering the 229-years-old great American experiment to the wiles of a foreign totalitarian. (Gono H. McIntyro sharos his opinion ovory look.) Share your opinion Email a Letter to the Editor or submit a guest column to the Keizertimes. Deadline is noon Tuesday. Email to: publisher@keizertimes.com
