How Trump can really help California

The San Diego Union-Tribune:

President Donald Trump is due to fly into Marine Corps Air Station Miramar en route to see his border wall prototypes Tuesday in his first visit to California since the 2016 campaign. Given the growing divide over immigration between his administration and state leaders from Gov. Jerry Brown on down, there may be an expectation that the issue will again be this week’s main focus. It should, of course, only be one of many. Here are three crucial matters that Californians need the president to prioritize:

Preserving the North American Free Trade Agreement. The 1994 accord between the United States, Canada and Mexico is far from perfect, but it is absolutely not “the worst trade deal ever made by any country,” as Trump used to claim. Last year, the president backed away from withdrawing from the deal in favor of negotiations meant to modernize the accord — in the view of Canada and Mexico — and to improve its treatment of the United States — in the view of the White House. These negotiations are why Trump exempted the two nations from the steel and aluminum tariffs he recently announced. NAFTA’s preservation is essential to the huge binational San Diego-Tijuana economy. Every day, dozens of companies with operations on both sides of the border produce pharmaceutical, aerospace, electronics and defense products, medical devices, and more. Trade between San Diego and Mexico tops $4 billion a year. Jeopardizing that is just silly.

Recognizing the urgent need to end the constant sewage spills on the Tijuana side of the border that foul the San Diego County coastline. The problem is so severe and seemingly intractable that the Port of San Diego and the cities of Imperial Beach and Chula Vista recently chose to sue the U.S. branch of the binational International Boundary and Water Commission for failing to fix broken sewage infrastructure in Tijuana that led to closure of parts of the Imperial Beach coast for at least 160 days in each of 2015, 2016 and 2017. The U.S. Justice Department’s reaction to this problem? Saying it should be taken up in budget negotiations, where it would face many competing demands for funding. This blitheness about a huge problem is bizarre.

Pushing harder for the opening of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. Southern California Edison’s decision to store 3.55 million pounds of dangerous waste from the shuttered San Onofre nuclear plant at the plant site is far from ideal. The Trump administration raised the hopes of San Onofre’s nervous neighbors last year when its proposed federal budget included $120 million to revive a congressional plan adopted in 1987 to store nuclear waste from across the nation at the remove Nevada site. But that plan may soon die in a House subcommittee, according to Bloomberg News. The White House needs to weigh in as forcefully as possible to keep the funding on track. California and 34 other states have an urgent need to safely dispose of more than 200 million pounds of nuclear waste.

This wish list could be a lot longer because whether Trump’s critics care to admit it or not, Californians need his help. How about it, Mr. President?

Tribune Content Agency