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Alabamans can expect President Trump’s surprise victory to benefit their economy in many ways.
First and foremost, it will turbocharge the state’s manufacturing industry.
Alabama’s manufacturers are responsible for over 15 percent of the state’s total output and nearly 13 percent of its employment. On the campaign trail, Trump promised to protect them by imposing new tariffs on China and other nations.
By supporting punitive import restrictions on Alabama businesses’ products, these problem countries continue interfering with their overall growth production totals. Trump’s forthcoming tariffs will ensure that home state companies operate on a level playing field with the rest of the world again, which will boost Alabama’s gross domestic product and job creation simultaneously.
Alabama’s auto manufacturing especially stands to benefit. The Yellowhammer State is already one of the top five states in the nation for auto manufacturing but suffers tremendously from other countries’ anti-free trade policies, which limit the pool of buyers for the state’s products. President Trump has explicitly promised to address this problem for Alabama’s automakers upon his second swearing-in.
Trump’s second bite at the White House will not just allow Alabama businesses to compete more effectively with the global economy. It will also make it easier for them to grow here at home.
Trump’s election will almost assuredly help boost Alabama’s robust defense industry.
This sector contributes over $50 billion to the state economy, over 20 percent of the total economy. From 2016 to 2020, Trump increased defense spending by $98 billion, creating thousands of new job opportunities for Alabama businesses, and he is expected to do the same in his next term.
Trump will also end the effective restrictions the administration has imposed on Alabama’s aggressive push toward fostering economic innovation.
The Alabama Legislature recently passed “The Game Plan” to give businesses the incentives they need to innovate, thrive, and grow. However, these incentives have been hamstrung by federal policies that have discouraged innovation in other ways.
Much of the issue lies with how the Biden-Harris administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission have gone after the consumer welfare standard, which for years ensured that the government would only go after companies that unreasonably increased prices or affected the competitive landscape. Kicking this standard to the curb allowed the Biden-Harris White House to target any company it desired literally for being too successful. For example, right before the election, the Biden-Harris DOJ sued Visa for allegedly having too big of a footprint in the debit card marketplace. However, experts have insisted that Visa, which faces a ton of competition from other debit card companies and new market players like Apple and Google Pay, has not engaged in predatory business practices or violated antitrust laws. The Trump-aligned Federalist Society said that “an agency oriented towards innovation incentives” would never allow such anti-growth silliness to occur, and it provided other examples of how the Biden-Harris administration has proven not to understand this point.
Fortunately, Trump is an entrepreneur. He understands that, in the business world, big does not necessarily equate to bad and that acting against successful companies when there is no proof of consumer harm is a recipe for unnecessarily squelching the very innovation that Alabama has been trying so hard to promote. That is why he has promised to ensure his administration encourages innovation and business growth in every instance where consumers benefit. Trump’s calls for reverting to a “live and let live” business philosophy will stop this and allow Alabama — the eighth best-ranked state in Area Development’s 2024 “Top States for Doing Business” report — to continue pushing forward.
With the majority of Alabama voters stating that the economy was their top concern this election, it is no wonder why President Trump resoundingly won the state with nearly 65 percent of the vote. Alabama voters knew that his election would be best for their pocketbooks and it is only a matter of time before they are proven correct.
Randy Howell serves as the Assistant Professor of Science at Point University.
