At 100 days, economic anxieties come alive in Michigan: ‘I wish the message was clearer'
President Donald Trump is taking a self-described victory lap on Tuesday as he returns to one of the biggest battleground states for the first time since taking office, basking in the glow of 100 days back in the White House.
For Pashko Ujkaj, who can feel the economic pressures at his Dodge Park Coney Island diner, it's far too early to measure the success – or bemoan the failure – of Trump's second term.
'I think it's too early to give him a grade,' Ujkaj said. 'If he puts this economy back on track and wins these tariffs to our advantage, I think people will feel more comfortable. If he doesn't, it's not going to be good. It's not going to be good.'
The economic headwinds and their accompanying hardships weigh heavy on the minds of voters who supported Trump – and those who did not – as his presidency hits 100 days. It's an arbitrary, yet inescapable, milestone for early assessments of his whirlwind return to power.
In 2016, Ujkaj voted for Trump. Four years later, he did not. When asked whom he supported in 2024, he paused for an uncomfortably long moment as customers sat within earshot, before replying: 'Let's just say you're putting me on the spot.'
Like many business owners, he would rather listen to opinions than offer his own, considering he is as likely to serve breakfast to Trump-voting Republicans as he is lunch to Democrats who backed Kamala Harris at his Macomb County diner north of Detroit.
But after absorbing the last few months of those conversations, he is certain of one thing: The economy and a promise of lowering costs, which helped propel Trump to the White House, now stand as one of the president's biggest challenges.
'I think the fair thing to give him a grade – if you want to really give him a true grade – is by the end of the year,' Ujkaj said. By then, he added, 'I want to see this economy better.'
For all the carefully watched national economic indicators, including a University of Michigan survey this month that showed consumer sentiment fell to 52% from 57% in March, Ujkaj has also noticed a telling metric inside his diner.
'Instead of coming out three or four times a week, people might only come out one or two times,' Ujkaj said in an interview Monday before the lunch crowd arrived. 'We have a lot of seniors. They're on fixed incomes. And when you see those prices skyrocket, they feel it the most, right?'
In Michigan, where one in five jobs are linked in some way to the auto industry, fallout from the Trump administration's tariff policy comes up in one conversation after another. The on-again, off-again duties – on neighboring Canada, Mexico and beyond – have roiled markets and frustrated John Walus, a three-time Trump voter, Army veteran and retired autoworker.
'I just wish the message was clearer on where he's going with the tariffs,' Walus said. 'I think that would settle a lot of the turmoil right now, especially with the stock market. There's been a lot of uncertainty right now regarding that.'
As he paused for a moment to talk Monday afternoon while walking in downtown Mt. Clemens, Walus added: 'How is he going to get from here to there? I think he needs to do a better job of explaining how that's going to be done.'
As the president was set to make his way to Michigan on Tuesday for an evening rally at Macomb Community College in Warren, the White House signaled another modification on auto-related tariffs, responding to fears from the nation's biggest automakers about economic consequences.
The president is poised to sign an executive order Tuesday that will lay out a three-year plan that breaks down different phases of the auto tariffs – a decision that came after Trump fielded calls from multiple automaker CEOs, White House officials familiar with the conversation told CNN.
Chris Vitale, a retired Michigan auto worker who was in the Rose Garden on April 2 as Trump announced the sweeping tariffs in an event the White House hailed as 'Liberation Day,' said he applauded the president's approach to tariffs to revive American manufacturing.
'I know how our industry has been disadvantaged, for the last 60 years,' Vitale said. 'The tariffs, in effect, got people's attention and brought them to the negotiating table, which is probably the goal all along.'
Vitale spent three decades at Chrysler, which is now Stellantis, before retiring at the end of last year. He is among the many rank-and-file auto workers and retirees who have spoken out in favor of Trump's tariffs, one of many things he says he supports about Trump's second term.
'For the first time in four years, I don't have a feeling of dread,' Vitale said. 'It's like that weight, that dread, of what new regulation, what new law, what experimental vaccine, what mandate is going to get imposed next.'
Before administration officials previewed their latest tariff pause on Tuesday, the whiplash and uncertainty has become a growing point of frustration to Michael Taylor, the mayor of Sterling Heights, a Republican who supported Trump in 2016 but has since twice voted against him.
'The tariffs are on, then they're off, then they're changed,' Taylor said in an interview. 'Business owners, they really struggle when they don't have a certain landscape ahead of them. These tariffs have created chaos in that regard.'
The promise of reviving American manufacturing by imposing steep tariffs is overstated, he said, and far more complicated than the Trump administration has indicated or explained.
'He's not just misleading. He's lying,' Taylor argued about a tariff strategy Trump has long believed in, with visions of factories suddenly roaring back to life. 'It's frustrating because he has a lot of supporters who believe him even though he knows he's not telling the truth.'
'Small businesses are the backbone of America,' Gibson said. 'How can that be if tariffs are brought into play? Then, little people, businesses like mine, are going to struggle and may not even exist because we cannot afford to pay those kind of prices and absorb it into our little business.'
Naszreen Gibson, who owns The Rendezvous with Tea, said she is bracing for the impact of Trump administration's tariffs on tea imports from Sri Lanka, China and other countries around the world. She said she did not vote for Trump, but many of her customers did.
Her sales are down from a year ago, she said, which she attributes to economic anxiety and belt-tightening before a possible recession.
'Every time someone talks about the tariffs, the stock market goes crazy,' Gibson said. 'It goes up and down, people have their retirement funds there, their 401(k)s and so on.'
The president's visit to Michigan on Tuesday marks a rare moment of taking his economic agenda on the road for the first campaign-style rally of his second term.
While he has flown to his homes in Florida or New Jersey most weekends since returning to office, the term-limited Trump has logged virtually no travel during the week. It's a far different pattern than during his first term, when he delivered speeches in several battleground states during his first 100 days.
For a president who campaigned on lowering costs for Americans and ushering in what he promised would be a new 'Golden Age,' the economic concerns reverberating through conversations with voters across Macomb County are a potential warning for his administration at this stage.
The signs of unease are palpable, even for optimistic business owners like Ujkaj at Dodge Park Coney Island.
'Right now, I don't think it's where he wants it to be,' Ujkaj said of the president's performance after 100 days in office. 'Do I think it's going to get better? Yes. I do think he wants his legacy to be known for something great.'
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