The high opportunity cost of Trump's economy

President Donald Trump is returning to the White House with the strongest economy in the world; unemployment is low, inflation continues to trend downward and growth is accelerating. Yet, Trump is about to unravel our post-COVID recovery with an attempt to enact a toxic economic agenda of tariffs, mass deportations and tax cuts for the mega-rich. All paid for with cuts to programs that benefit working class Americans.

Latinos, as much as any group, are poised to bear the brunt of Trump's corrosive MAGA policies. This is particularly ironic given that Democrats lost ground this cycle with Latino voters because some believed Trump would improve their economic well-being. But that dynamic also gives Democrats an opening in 2026 to reclaim lost ground and flip control of the House. 

Democrats must aggressively show how Trump's economic policies immediately harmed Latino families and communities—increasing their hardships while decreasing access to the services on which many of them depend.

The nation’s affordability crisis has uniquely impacted Latinos. As reporter Jack Herrera notes, "80% of Latinos are working class. Their experience of the economy the past four years — COVID shutdowns, inflation, gas prices, housing costs — was rough. That put the incumbent Democrats at a disadvantage." 

But Latinos were not an outlier. A recent Way to Win post-election battleground state survey noted that jobs and the economy were the most motivating issues across race and education. And Trump outperformed Harris across several key groups on 2024's top issue: jobs and the economy. To bring these voters back, Democrats must speak directly to their concerns, show that they are fighting for them and their interests while also highlighting what Republican economic policies do to devastate their communities. 

The truth is, despite systemic issues of inequality that exacerbated an affordability crisis, particularly for working class voters, Democrats had made progress over the past four years. As Peter Baker of the New York Times noted, employment is up, wages are growing, manufacturing jobs are higher than ever, and inflation has dropped significantly. 

According to Politico, that progress is at risk: House Republicans are eyeing more than $5 trillion in cuts to bankroll Trump's top priorities this year, including tax cuts for billionaires and mass deportations. The early list of potential spending offsets includes changes to Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, and popular climate measures. These cuts alone would deeply hurt Latinos who live in climate change frontline communities and have benefited from the cost-saving energy rebates in the Clean Energy Plan. Worse yet, nine million Latinos are insured through the Affordable Care Act and 6.5 million Latinos use Medicare—roughly 10% of all enrollees.

Even without those cuts, Trump's economic policies promise to wreak havoc on the financial security of Latinos along with most Americans. 

Trump has promised aggressive tariffs, which are taxes placed on imported goods. US companies will have to pay those tariffs to import goods, and businesses will almost surely pass those costs on to consumers. Economists agree on this point — consumers would likely see prices increase if Trump follows through with a plan to levy import tariffs. In fact, Trump himself has admitted that there is no 'guarantee' that prices won't rise with his tariff program.

Mass deportations, another Trump promise, will also prove costly because they will remove workers who are critical to powering our economy, according to a report from Unidos. Undocumented workers account for  22% of all U.S. agriculture jobs, 15% of all construction jobs, and 8% of all manufacturing jobs. Mass deportations could result in labor shortages—deeply impacting supply and driving up the cost of specific goods and services in these sectors. This is especially true of grocery prices, where inflation rattled consumers and remained stubbornly high during much of Biden’s presidency.  Deportations could also exacerbate another vexing problem, housing prices, by reducing the number of workers available to help construct new homes to address the nation’s housing shortage. 

Finally, Trump's tax policy changes, if enacted, will result in a tax cut for the wealthiest five percent of Americans while simultaneously being a tax increase for all other income groups. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, if these proposals were in effect in 2026, the wealthiest one percent would receive an average tax cut of about $36,300, and the lowest-income twenty percent of Americans would receive an increase of $800.

The cumulative effects of all of these policies will be terrible for Latinos, which could leave many feeling a sense of buyer's remorse for voting for Trump. To maximize that anger, Democrats must make the case directly to Latinos that we are on their side, tell them how we would make their lives better, and underscore precisely how toxic Trump’s policies are for our communities. If we do that, we stand a great chance of stanching the gains Trump made with Latinos in 2024, regaining control of the House in 2026, and making him a lame-duck president.