New York fears tariffs on Canada
Plus some different perspectives on involuntary mental health treatment
To get a sense of how tariffs on Canadian goods might affect New York’s economy, I drove up to Precision Valve & Automation in Halfmoon. More than 200 people work at the plant – which is just down the road from where I grew up – making machines which spray adhesives or other liquids. Consumers don’t see them, but they’re used in factories around the world making everything from tractors to airplanes.
PVA President Tony Hynes gave me a tour of the machine shop, and pointed to racks of steel and aluminum that he said would be impacted by any tariffs. The radio feature is below, and you can click here to read the written version at Gothamist.com.
President Donald Trump announced the tariffs Monday, then mostly postponed them on Thursday. The Republican president says the tariffs will push firms to bring production back to the United States. He’s also used tariffs as a hammer in negotiating tighter border controls with Canada and Mexico.
Hynes said new duties would result in higher costs for his business – which does all its production in Saratoga County – and make it harder to compete in a global market.
”It seems quite chaotic,” Hynes said. “People like me now are spending an inordinate amount of time trying to figure it all out. I'm not concentrating on sales. I'm not concentrating on how to make a better work environment for my employees. I'm just concentrating on the whiplash, the daily whiplash of what tariffs are and how they're going to affect me.”
FORCED INTO TREATMENT: Evelyn Graham-Nyaasi knows what it’s like to be involuntarily committed for mental health treatment.
Manhattan resident, who has bipolar disorder, recalled that in 2018, someone in her home accused her of threatening them with a knife and called the police.
“ The officer was like, ‘Do you wanna get in the police car or the ambulance?’” Graham-Nyaasi, who denied having a knife, told me. She said emergency responders took her to Bellevue Hospital, where she was held for more than a week.
I spoke with Graham-Nyaasi for a feature on a proposal by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul that would make it easier for authorities to involuntarily commit someone for mental health treatment. The radio feature is below, and you can click here to read the written version.
Opponents say Hochul’s proposal is overreach and that voluntary treatment is more effective, while proponents say it’s a necessary tool to boost public safety and help homeless people with severe mental illness. The debate is one of many fights taking place in Albany as state lawmakers hammer out a budget for the next fiscal year.
On the other side are people like Jim Walden, a lawyer in Brooklyn Heights who is running for New York City mayor. He has spoken publicly about his older sister Debbie’s struggles with depression before she was killed in 2012.
Debbie received treatment at several institutions and medication was effective, Walden said. His sister was able to get a job, maintain an apartment and find a boyfriend. But she would take her medicine erratically, and then not at all, he said.
Walden said he successfully pushed to have his sister involuntarily committed, and she was released after she was stabilized. But her disease again gained the upper hand. She ended up on the streets, got into a fight and died, he said.
“If we want to protect people, they can't be on the street,” Walden said. “There's got to be a legal system that requires them in these circumstances to stay and get the treatment that they need so that they can live, you know, as close to a normal life as possible.”
THE QUESTION: Who was the first U.S. president to impose tariffs?
Know the answer? Drop me a line at jimmy.vielkind@gmail.com. Or just write with thoughts, feedback or to say hi.
THE LAST ANSWER: I received a lot of responses about Andrew Cuomo. Here are two:
(1) I am not nor have I ever been a fan of Andrew Cuomo. He is arrogant, vindictive and never gave two shits about the Democratic Party…My opinion of Andrew did a 180 when he stepped up to tackle an unprecedented problem we came to know as the Covid pandemic. He exhibited precisely the leadership that was needed to cope with a pandemic that would claim nearly a million American lives. No other leader could have done a better job.
(2) Cuomo as Mayor = Insert fart sound worthy of a Monty Python skit.