Tariffs and Immigration – campaign focus of Jumaane Williams and Zohan Mandami

By Nayaba Arinde
Editor-in-Chief
“Life in this city is already too expensive— now Trump’s tariffs are driving prices even higher,” evaluated Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. “New Yorkers are struggling to afford the basics.”

Indeed, the public is leaning into the threat of President Donald Trump’s tumultuous tariff trickle-down, which is traumatizing city residents in real time.
And then there is the Trump tariff turmoil effect that has the stock market numbers free-falling and seesawing like an indecisive politico arbitrarily weighing up options on a daily basis. As the president plays ping pong with his trade tumble with China, Mexico, Canada, and the world with retaliatory 100%-plus tariffs put on US goods–auto workers and car buyers, electronic goods buyers, clothing stores, tea and toys, and even US farmers, are decrying the effects of the economic checkers game.

“Tariffs hurt low-income families,” possible City Hall candidate Christina Serrano told Our Time Press. The daughter of one-time Knick Greg ‘Jocko’ Jackson (a Brownsville icon, especially with the Brownsville Recreation Center) is a community advocate who worked for Councilmembers Alicka Ampry-Samuels, Chi Osse, and Chris Banks and is running for the City Council seat in the 41st District (which includes Brownsville, Bed Stuy, Crown Heights, Ocean Hill, and East Flatbush).

“We know tariffs are taxes placed on goods we import from other countries. But let’s be clear: when tariffs go up, it’s our families, especially in working-class and low-income communities, who feel it first and worst.”

The economic flexing decisions coming from the White House have created a U.S.-China trade war. Certain observers are charging that Trump keeps changing his mind and the tariff rules, making working—and middle-class folk struggle daily while millionaires, billionaires, and oligarchs count big gains. The fluctuating action has China retaliating against Trump’s 104% tariff on Chinese goods, resulting in China slamming U.S. goods going into China with an 84% tariff.

As the tariff trauma hits on different levels, Public Advocate Williams said, “We need to focus on real solutions that help working people put food on the table and stay in their homes.”
Serrano added, “Tariffs make everyday items like food, clothes, and household goods more expensive. For families already living paycheck to paycheck, higher prices at the grocery store or the corner shop hit hard.”

Meanwhile, joint front-running mayoral candidate Assemblyman Zohan Kwame Mandami told Our Time Press, “We’ve been in the race for a little more than 5 months. From the very beginning, it’s been the same message: to fight for a city that we can actually afford because what we’re seeing is that in the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, working-class workers are being priced out of the city that they built.”

From witty to biting, the political season will throw up some classic remarks.
Grassroots activists, authentic advocates, political chancers, and genuine changemakers are getting in gear. This is as the electorate and the general proletariat are navigating the DC-created headwinds with cuts affecting everything from medical insurance to social security, education, and law enforcement.
All candidates are striving to convince potential and dedicated voters that they–and they alone—will be representing misrepresented people. This week, some pundits have Mayor Eric Adams’s re-election bid in the rearview mirror, with an Andrew Cuomo versus Mamdani two-man race as the June primary race match-up.

“One in four New Yorkers is in poverty, 500,000 children go to bed hungry every night, and these are statistics that are a stain on our city, and they are the result of political choices that have been made for far too long,” Queens Assemblyman Mamdani told the paper. “You’ve seen this mayoral administration that has taken almost every opportunity to exacerbate a cost-of-living crisis that we will instead combat from the very 1st day that I’m in office.”

Sounds lofty. How so?
“We will do so by freezing the rent, by making the slowest buses in the country fast and free, and by delivering universal childcare,” predicted the Ugandan-born, New York-raised candidate with a massive Campaign Finance Board matching funds boosted war chest.
His personal experience gives him a particular understanding of immigration and what’s coming down from the White House.

“It is terrifying to see what this White House is putting New Yorkers through because it has put New Yorkers firmly within their crosshairs, detained New Yorkers, disappeared New Yorkers – detained them in ICE facilities as far away as Louisiana without charge, other than engaging in the First Amendment–one of the bedrock principles of this country.

So what does he tell migrants and immigrants who are afraid?
“I understand their fear because what we are seeing is a federal government that is looking to deport them at almost every opportunity and a mayoral administration that has refused to show the courage necessary in fighting back against that–instead offering collaboration, or in the words that have characterized Andrew Cuomo’s campaign thus far – ‘cowardice.’ It’s important that we show conviction at this moment, we show clarity.”

He spoke as the news cycle had now Independent candidate Mayor Adams swinging for the fences. Released from the effects of the alleged President Donald Trump quid pro quo federal legal charges, he has a new lease on political life.
This past week, Adams addressed the fatal helicopter crash in the Hudson and traveled to the Dominican Republic after the tragic nightclub collapse, which affected New York’s large Dominican community.

As the City Council and mayoral candidate Speaker Adrienne Adams sought to sue the mayor for allowing ICE agents to set up an office on Rikers Island, Mamdani slammed Adams’ other big immigration issue.

“It is New York City law to uphold the pieces of legislation we passed over many decades that have come to be known as our Sanctuary City policies,” Zamdani told the paper. Policies that have kept New Yorkers safe. These policies have been defended by Republicans and Democrats alike, but now, they have been at the heart of Eric Adams’s fear-mongering over the course of his term. It is the law to ensure that New York City does not allow ICE agents into schools, hospitals, city property, the properties of city contractors, Rikers, and yet we’re seeing the rollback of many of these same principles, and that is unacceptable.”

As the mayor, Mamdani determined, “I would establish 100% compliance with Sanctuary City law and would work towards providing legal representation for many of the New Yorkers who are currently in the process of being deported because what we know is that to keep families together providing legal representation increases your chance of success 11-fold. It’s time that we finally fight for New Yorkers and keep them in their homes.”