As it became clear that enthusiasm for Kamala Harris was waning leading up to the election, bond markets were already going down. That’s important, because the bond market is a predictor of the future.

For contrast, the stock market went up 3% the morning after the election, as Donald Trump promised dramatic tax breaks and lenient environmental regulations for corporations. That explains why so many billionaires supported Trump.

Our bond market, perhaps not as well understood as stocks, is the biggest in the world, and though the Federal Reserve sets a “target” interest rate and regulates short-term interest rates.

The nation’s $28 trillion treasury market sets the final interest rate through an auction.

Here’s what an auction determines: When prices of bonds drop, yields for investors go up. But this also drives up mortgage rates, interest rates on car loans, credit cards and so forth. Foreign countries and investors also trade bonds based on expectations for future borrowing. If our government needs to sell more bonds, lower prices and higher rates of return to investors usually follow.

America is piling up huge annual deficits, and when buyers of our bonds grow concerned about the credit worthiness of the United States, they typically start selling. This creates a knock-on effect of higher deficits, as the nation pays higher interest rates on its massive borrowing.

Never downplay the impact a falling bond markets can have. Bond traders have toppled governments—Great Britain in 2022 is a prime example, reinforcing bond traders nickname “bond vigilantes.”

After Donald Trump was elected, the bond market, which had already declined significantly in anticipation of his win, fell 3% the next morning. That is considered a very bad day for the bond market. Investors began predicting that two of Donald Trump’s election promises would lead to higher prices for consumers.

His first promise was to deport millions of undocumented workers even though our country is at full employment.  Deporting workers will cause a labor shortage and drive up the cost of American made goods, especially the cost of vegetables, meat and housing, industries that rely heavily on manual labor.

His second promise, using presidential power to impose tariffs on goods from other countries, is another way a president can raise costs for consumers. The president-elect has talked up tariffs repeatedly, calling them “beautiful” and promising that other countries will pay for them.

That is not how tariffs work.

If we want foreign goods from China and Mexico, we must pay the going rate. If we want to substitute an American good, we should be sure it’s available and that there is labor to produce it.

During his last presidency, Trump levied tariffs on China. It retaliated by levying tariffs on our farm products, which erased profits for midwestern farmers.

Trump quickly reallocated $12 billion via the U.S. Agriculture Department to support those farmers. That is called a bailout, or welfare.

Moreover, if he raises tariffs across the board on goods from other countries, there will be widespread “revenge- tariffs”—just as happened last time. Unless we borrow even more money in the bond market for various welfare schemes, the tariffs will harm the smallest American companies, while international corporations, with operations overseas, will be less impacted.

Once again farmers will be hurt. We are mostly a nation of consumers, not producers, and 68% of our economy is buying goods. That is why so many suffered during the inflationary spike under Joe Biden, causing the necessary goods in life to become shockingly pricey.

When Donald Trump takes charge next year—and if he fulfills his promises—tariffs and labor shortages are bound to dramatically raise prices and interest rates for American consumers. Once an economy contracts, recession follows.

Somehow, we missed thoroughly debunking Donald Trump’s wrongheaded assumptions about what makes our economy work. Now, we face an uncertain future with a leader whose policies benefit the rich while harming working people.

Dave Marston is the publisher of Writers on the Range, Writersontherange.org. A nonprofit dedicated to lively discussion about the West. He worked in finance in New York City and now lives in Durango, Colorado.

The post The Trump triumph portends an economic fallout appeared first on Writers On The Range.

Three presidents have signed Bears Ears proclamations. Barack Obama established Bears Ears National Monument in 2016, but supporters were devastated when Donald Trump eviscerated the monument the following year, reducing its area by 85%. In 2021, President Joe Biden restored the original boundaries and then some.

What’s clear is that Bears Ears remains reviled by Republican officials and cherished by Indigenous tribes and conservationists.

The monument, 1.36 million acres in southeast Utah, lies within San Juan County. The Navajo Nation covers 25% of the county, and Native people account for more than half of the 14,200-person population. Just 8% of the county is private land while another 5% is state trust land.

The rest — 62% of the county — is federal land owned by the people of the United States and administered by the Departments of Agriculture and Interior. This immense commons testifies to the sublime difficulty of the place — beautiful enough to warrant preservation as national parks, monuments and forests. But it’s also arid enough to attract only a few 19th-century settlers to what had been Indigenous homeland for millennia.

I think it’s fair to say that San Juan County’s white residents never envisioned challenges to their political power. But in 2009, the feds came down hard on generations of casual pothunting by local white families. Then, after a century of oppressing their Indigenous neighbors, lawsuits strengthened Native voting rights. The county commission became majority Navajo from 2018 to 2022.

Native influence keeps expanding. The five tribes of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition first envisioned a national monument and became co-stewards for these 1.36 million acres. They have a champion in Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, but such historic changes make the dominant culture uneasy.

In February, Utah Governor Spencer Cox dramatically withdrew from a Bears Ears land exchange poised for completion. This swap of state trust lands for Bureau of Land Management lands would hugely benefit the state. Details were already negotiated; each side compromised; the stakeholders were largely content.

But in 2024, Utah politics are stark, compounded by distrust and disinformation.

At statehood in 1896, Utah received four sections per township to support public schools and universities. The Utah Trust Lands Administration manages these scattered lands — blue squares on ownership maps — but blocking up these blue squares into manageable parcels means trading land with federal agencies.

Such trades aren’t rare and can be grand in scale. A 1998 negotiation between Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Utah Governor Mike Leavitt traded Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument’s 176,000 acres of school sections for BLM land elsewhere — along with a hefty $50 million payment to Utah from the U.S. Treasury. Utah Trust Lands still brags about the deal on its website.

But the old guard is up in arms about the draft Bears Ears Resource Management Plan released for public comment on March 8. The BLM’s preferred alternative emphasizes traditional Indigenous knowledge and land health.

Any such gestures toward conservation elicit local outrage about the feds “destroying” the pioneer way of life. The subtext: the people long in charge don’t want to lose power.

Denouncing federal overreach is always a sure win for Utah politicians. In this year’s Republican primary, San Juan County-based legislator Phil Lyman is challenging the incumbent governor with fierce anti-public lands rhetoric. Governor Cox will need to protect his right flank.

Meanwhile, school trust lands within Bears Ears remain at risk. The second tallest structure in Utah, a 460-foot telecom tower with blinking red lights, could rise on state land in the heart of the monument. It’s been approved by county planners, and the Trust Lands Administration could add poison pills on other lands proposed for exchange.

The elected leaders of Utah have decided that the monument’s integrity and the needs of the state’s children matter less than political gamesmanship.

The five tribes of Bears Ears know better: “It is our obligation to our ancestors…and to the American people, to protect Bears Ears.” Their big hearts will win in the end.

Stephen Trimble is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He lives in Utah and will publish the 35th anniversary edition of his book The Sagebrush Ocean: A Natural History of the Great Basin next winter.

Corrections: The 4th paragraph has been changed to reflect the monument is 1.36 million acres. Previously it read 5 million acres. The 7th paragraph read 1.3 million acres and that has been updated as well to 1.36 million acres. Paragraph 15 is changed to reflect the proposed telecom tower would become the second-tallest structure in Utah. Not the tallest.

The post Culture wars and an embattled Utah monument appeared first on Writers On The Range.