U.S. Senator Richard Shelby, Republican from Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Editor’s Note: This is an open letter to U.S. Senator Richard Shelby, the Republican from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, published here as an editorial opinion column.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Dear Senator Shelby:

You and I go way back, when I covered your earliest political campaigns for Alabama newspapers and the wire service UPI.

You’ve been around awhile longer than I, however, since you graduated from the University of Alabama in 1957, the year I was born. I attended from 1981-83, the last two years when Paul “Bear” Bryant was the football coach, and again from 1993-95 for a Master’s degree.

One of the biggest lessons I learned about Alabama politics in those early years was how important business is to the state, economic development and “jobs.”

You have devoted your career in public service in Washington to securing industry and federal money for the state. Many people, especially pro-business Republicans and some independents and Democrats, look up to you in a positive way for that work.

As I recall, you helped out on a cause I was covering on the Gulf Coast back in 1992, when the Navy wanted to locate a nuclear simulator off the coast to test ships. Public opposition to the program – which didn’t provide much in the way of money or jobs – was overwhelming for economic and environmental reasons, so you killed it as a member of the Armed Services Committee by eliminating a $78 million line item in the defense budget. But you were a Democrat then.

You changed parties in 1994 after winning reelection in 1992 as a Democrat, and many criticized you for that, including me.

But it seems to have worked out for you in a number of ways. It recently came to light in the media that you are now the longest-serving member in the United State Senate. Congratulations. You may catch old Strom Thurmond yet.

I figure it must be easier to be a Republican Senator than a Democrat. I’ve watched Senator Doug Jones work really hard since he was elected in 2017. It seems Democrats demand much more of a representative than Republicans, who don’t seem to think much of government or express a big need for its services.

The rhetoric you have employed in your more recent reelection campaigns has basically sounded like the slogans of the tea party, which seems to have disappeared to somewhere. I guess all you really have to do is remind people how conservative you are and maybe besmirch the name of our first African American president here and there in TV ads to get reelected.

As a conservative, and a lawyer, you tend to be more careful with your words when speaking as a Senator, as opposed to a candidate. Since Donald Trump got elected in 2016, you have been very careful in talking about the president in ways that would only tend to help Alabama, not hurt. This is smart, to a point, both politically and for business.

But after three years of this Twitter and reality TV roller coaster ride, I suspect you are just as concerned about the direction of the country and the behavior and actions of the president as many Democrats. I’m not writing to try to get you to come out publicly and stand for impeachment of the president at this juncture. You must wait for all the evidence to be presented in the proper forum.

Perhaps you and your Senate colleagues like Senator Lyndsey Graham are not as incensed as the Democrats are about the obvious abuse of power Trump has displayed in dealing with foreign leaders like the president of Ukraine. I mean withholding military aid to a country that was already authorized by Congress to try to force a foreign leader to help in digging up dirt on a political opponent is not pretty, and may in fact constitute a high crime or misdemeanor. Maybe you can see it as just a president using his bully pulpit around the world.

Then there is the cover-up. And the cover-up of the cover-up. Hiding text transcripts of these political communications in secret government computers designed for national security secrets and failing to turn over documents from a CIA agent and federal whistleblower to Congress as required by law does not look good.

But let’s say you can in good conscience somehow ignore all of that.

What I suspect you can’t ignore much longer is what’s happening on the business front in Alabama, this country and around the world due to Trump’s ill-conceived trade war with China, Europe and other countries.

I mean at what point do you finally come to the conclusion that this so-called business man “Art of the Deal” maker is actually bad for business? Bad for Alabama?

Yes, when he gutted the EPA and other federal agencies and dismantled a number of long-standing federal regulations, and cut taxes on the rich and business, he did light a fire under an economy that was already recovering from the Bush Great Recession due to the actions of another president who many Americans admire greatly, Barack Obama.

But you know as well as I do along with Paul Krugman at the New York Times and Robert Reich that too much growth too fast with no regulations can lead to boom and bust cycles and recessions, as well as other economic and environmental disasters, like the BP oil spill that contaminated the Gulf Coast a few years back, including the beaches of Gulf Shores and the recreational and commercial fishing grounds off the coast of Alabama.

Well there is an economic disaster looming in Alabama right now, as you well know, all while you keep attending ground breaking ceremonies for new businesses around the state and your staff posts those pictures on Facebook and Twitter.

I don’t know if your staff shared these stories with you lately, but allow me to report to you what’s going on just in case you were not aware.

Old Jimmy Lyons down at the Port of Mobile was recently quoted in a Bloomberg News business wire story sounding worried not just about soybean exports drying up due to Trump’s trade war, but a “global recession.”

Allow me to pass along the quote and facts.

“The thing that keeps me up at night is a global recession,” says Lyons. “I’ve seen what it can do to our business. It dips very quickly and comes back very slowly.”

The conflict with China has already caused a collapse in grain exports from Mobile. A slowdown in the global economy would hit outbound shipments of metallurgical coal that account for 12 million of the 28 million tons of goods that pass through the port annually. But what looms largest in Alabama these days is the possibility that Trump will open a new European front in his global trade wars.

Trump’s Global Trade War Comes to Alabama

In fact the Washington Post is now reporting that the World Trade Organization on Wednesday authorized President Trump to impose tariffs on about $7.5 billion worth of European goods, capping a 15-year trans-Atlantic dispute over illegal subsidies to aircraft maker Airbus. The decision — the largest in the trade body’s history — opened the door to a broader trade war with the European Union.

The administration plans to impose tariffs of 10 percent on European aircraft and 25 percent on a variety of agricultural and industrial products, once it receives the final WTO approval later this month, a senior official with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative told reporters.

This would have a debilitating impact on Mercedes there in the Tuscaloosa area as well as the other auto makers who have located in Alabama, along with Airbus and the farmers. One of the worst problems caused by the president’s back and forth policies is that it makes it almost impossible for industry and financial leaders to plan, especially when it comes to consumer pricing and plant expansions, and it disrupts markets.

Senator Doug Jones says in the same Bloomberg article that the Trump administration’s threat of auto duties is already putting a damper on investment. But he’s more worried about what would happen in a state that has become home to a growing number of auto assembly plants if they actually were put in place.

The tariffs “are not going to cause all these plants to close. But they are not going to be able to expand,” he says. “And the same is true with Airbus.”

This concern was already growing last year when Senator Jones held a special hearing of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs at the University of South Alabama in Mobile. I was there to cover it, and interviewed Jimmy Lyons at that time.

“It is going to be much more impactful than it has been to date,” Lyons testified. “We’ve seen it in grain. We’ve seen it in our steel exports. We’ve seen orders cancelled. We’ve even seen metallurgical coal shipments cease to at least one country who’s been subject to the steel tariffs. The effects are far-reaching and it’s created an environment of uncertainty in business …

“Ultimately one of the concerns that we have is the potential inflationary impact of these new taxes, which is exactly what they are,” he said. “You can call them ‘tariffs,’ but they’re taxes. These tariffs and taxes are eventually going to fall on the shoulders of the American people.”

When interviewed after the hearing, Mr. Lyons was even more explicit about the president’s practice of setting national trade policy and starting trade wars by Twitter tweet.

“Four o’clock in the morning policy announcements (on Twitter) are crazy. It’s beyond me,” he said. “I don’t believe in it, but I don’t think you are going to see a change with this president.”

When asked what should be done about it, he said: “I don’t know. I guess we will find out in two years.”

“I think the Congress is too divided to really have an impact,” Lyons said. “The country’s divided.”

When asked what people can do, he said: “Go to the polls in two years.”

Alabama People Support the President, but May Be Hardest Hit by Trump’s Twitter Trade War

Now I know you have been hard at work with Democrat Senator Patrick Leahey trying to normalize the federal budget process and stop crashing from one budget resolution to another and constantly threatening government shutdowns. You had negotiated a bipartisan deal last year, which of course was blown up at the last minute before Christmas by Trump, with the tacit approval of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

You had to be very unhappy about that, but you held your tongue. I know you must fear becoming the subject of ridicule by the president on Twitter and TV like your former colleague Jeff Sessions, who had the misfortune of accepting Trump’s nomination as attorney general and then doing the right thing by recusing himself from the Russia election interference investigation.

Why just recently the president praised you on Twitter.

Congratulations to my friend @SenShelby, our powerful Appropriations Chairman, for his hard work on many strong bills that continue to rebuild our military, invest in border security, and many other priorities. Good work and keep fighting, you are winning!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2019

The talk is that he did that to suck up to you because he is worried about your opinion and potential vote on impeachment, if and when it reaches a trial in the Senate.

I am not asking you to comment for the record now. You must wait to see all the facts.

But it could be extremely helpful if you could simply make a comment to a reporter in the Capitol Rotunda or the area where the press hangs out in your Senate office building to the effect that the impeachment inquiry should go forward to its logical, factual conclusion.

This would send a huge signal to other Republicans on the Hill and could be the beginning of creating a lasting legacy for yourself on behalf of American democracy, not just some marbled halls of federal courthouses that bear your name – or buildings in universities where you’ve helped obtain federal funds.

Perhaps you don’t feel it as much as all the poor people out here in the state and country, but it feels like we are undergoing a dramatic crisis in our democracy. And while we have lots of problems, the biggest problem seems to be the occupant of the White House. Every move he makes, every distraction he perpetrates, just creates more chaos and confusion, tension and stress, for no good reason other than as a strategy for Trump to try to take over our country like a mob boss, a dictator, or even as America’s first king.

I know you are not for that. You can’t be.

So please, Senator — and if you do this I will never say another bad thing about you — stand up to Trump. Lead a little. Let other Republicans know that what Trump is doing to our country is wrong. Bad wrong.

Thank you sir for your service to our state and country.