By Jaylyn Preslicka and Alex Gryciuk
The Long Beach Current asked three CSULB professors who specialize in economics, foreign policy and reproductive rights about how President-elect Donald J. Trump’s policies will affect the American people.
Foreign Policy
Ezgi Yildiz, an assistant professor of international relations, specializes in global governance, international courts and organizations, human rights and ocean governance.
Yildiz discussed popular foreign issues including the Israel-Hamas war, China and Taiwan and Russia and Ukraine.
Trump has expressed his support for Israel as far back as 2017, when he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and planned to move the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and Trump have had a rocky relationship since 2021, but reconciled in 2024 during a meeting about the conflict.
“Given Trump’s close relationship with Netanyahu, it is plausible that a return to power would see Trump adopting even more lenient policies toward Israeli government actions,” Yildiz said.
Trump has made vocal his support of Israel’s defense force and their efforts to defeat Hamas.
“This could include endorsing expanded Israeli settlements in the West Bank and asserting full control over Gaza, measures that would likely exacerbate tensions with Palestinian authorities and other Middle Eastern nations,” Yildiz said. “Such moves could further damage the U.S.’s credibility as a neutral broker in peace negotiations.”
Yildiz said despite Trump’s strong pro-Israel stance, his isolationist approach could lead to reduced military aid to Israel.
Since 2016, Trump has formed a strong relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping. That said, his policy towards recognizing Taiwan as a country has caused issues.
“Trump’s confrontational policies toward China, especially through trade wars and rhetoric, heightened existing tensions and showcased a shift toward more explicit support for Taiwan,” Yildiz said. “This departure from strategic ambiguity to open endorsement could, if reinstated, embolden Taiwan but provoke severe responses from Beijing, including military exercises and economic countermeasures.”
If Trump does continue to support Taiwan, this may lead to implications of war during his second term.
Trump has expressed support for Ukraine’s independence from Russia, but has criticized how other European countries have handled the war.
“Trump and the Republican Party have expressed reluctance to continue the extensive military aid and equipment support provided to Ukraine,” Yildiz said. “If Western European countries fail to fill this gap, Trump might push Ukraine for a negotiated settlement that could include conceding occupied Ukrainian territories to Russia—a key goal for Putin.”
Trump has criticized the Biden Administration for sending billions of dollars to Ukraine since the war began in 2022 and has stated multiple times that if he had been in office, the war would have never started.
Reproductive Rights
Lori Baralt is a women’s, gender and sexuality studies professor who specializes in feminist theory, social movements and women’s health. Baralt discussed Trump’s policies regarding abortion on a state and federal level.
“I don’t think he personally cares that much about abortion, but he did promise his base…before 2016, that he would help with the overturning of Roe by appointing the new Supreme Court justices,” Baralt said. “That was a big deal, because that’s been a 50 year movement to try to overturn Roe v. Wade, and they succeeded.”
Trump has argued that the issue of abortion should be up to states to decide. Throughout his campaign, Trump said he would not sign a national abortion ban.
“He hasn’t wanted to publicly state that’s what he wants, a national ban…I imagine this is an opportunity for people that do want that to put it forward, because they’re going to have control over most of the federal government right now,” Baralt said.
Anti-abortion extremists have pushed for Trump to reenact the Comstock Act, a law that prohibited the sending of “obscene, lewd or lascivious” writings, or “any article or thing designed or intended for the prevention of conception or procuring an abortion.”
While Trump has stated that he does not intend to reenact the law, it is possible with a Republican majority in the House and Senate.
Economics
Jeremy Viele is a recently graduated part-time lecturer teaching Econ-101 at CSULB. Viele discussed the major topics of inflation, tax cuts and tariffs.
During his campaign, Trump focused on two major economic plans intended to improve inflation and increase tax cuts.
A major point of controversy has been his plan to increase tariffs in order to encourage more businesses to purchase from American manufacturers.
Inflation was a contentious issue on the campaign trail, as well as a selling point for many of Trump’s supporters.
“It has nothing to do with the President,” Viele said. “We’ve had high interest rates for a while now, and inflation has come down. Right now we are at 2.5% but we’re just above the target inflation rate that they shoot for.”
The proposed plan is to increase tariffs to 20% on imported goods from all countries. China will receive a tariff increase of 60%, and Mexico will increase to 100%.
“Consumers in the U.S. get a lot of goods from China, so for Long Beach specifically, it’s going to be the same,” Viele said. “I know Long Beach is like a major port for all these imported goods, so that might be an experience.”
Viele said that the one economic policy that got passed during Trump’s former presidency was tax cuts, which increased spending but decreased the national deficit.
“So we now had less tax revenue coming in, but we didn’t lower our spending at all. If you look at the graphs of comparing the deficit spending at the end of Trump’s Term versus right now, they were much higher,” Viele said.
