Dear CalMatters reader,

Confusion caused by President Donald Trump’s tariffs is clouding the Inland Empire’s economic forecast, as warehouses and other businesses face a looming trade war.

The Inland Empire Economic Partnership recently released its economic outlook showing consumer pessimism about Trump’s vacillating economic policies. The consumer sentiment index plunged in February. 

“Certainly the tariffs can and probably will have a negative effect on the economy of the Inland Empire,” said Paul Granillo, CEO of the Inland Empire Economic Partnership. “Those are prices that are passed onto the consumer and so people buy less … If the tariffs cause a trade war and there’s a dip in exports from China or other places, that will affect the Inland Empire.”

The report offered some good news, though: its authors don’t expect a recession this year.

“There are currently no alarm bells from leading economic indicators,” wrote Manfred Keil, Robert Kleinhenz, and Kenneth P. Miller, researchers with Claremont McKenna College who authored the report.

“We need to say upfront that this year, more so than in most previous years, there is more uncertainty involved in our forecast. This is the result of President Trump announcing certain policies (tariffs on Mexico and Canada, for example), only to postpone them shortly afterwards.”

While tariffs can suppress economic growth, Trump’s on-again, off-again plans to impose them have been particularly confounding to anyone trying to manage inventory or hire workers.

“People don’t like uncertainty and certainly employers don’t like it,” Granillo said.

That instability could ripple through the warehouse and logistics industry, key industries in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. That’s where retail giants Amazon, Wal-Mart and Target disperse imported goods from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach through to the rest of the country.

Other Trump policies could also scramble the region’s economic outlook.

Mass immigrant deportations might reduce the construction workforce as Los Angeles tries to rebuild more than 16,000 structures that burned in the Palisades and Eaton Fires in January. And tariffs could constrict construction supplies from Canada, the report warned. 

“Canadian lumber is a big part of the homebuilding industry; with tariffs and the current state of relations between the Trump administration and Canada, that’s problematic,” Granillo said. “And a lot of industries — healthcare, hospitality, construction — rely on immigrant labor. That’s going to be a cause of delays and rising costs of building.”

There’s another pernicious effect of tariffs on the Coachella Valley tourism sector, the report warned. The loss of goodwill is prompting some Canadian visitors to cancel U.S. travel. 

“The Coachella Valley is the winter home of thousands of Canadians,” Granillo said. “And many of them are choosing not to come to the United States because of the tensions between the Trump administration and Canada.”

Granillo said he’s trying to get numbers on vacation cancellations, noting “it’s happening in real time right now.”

Palm Springs Mayor Ron deHarte said he’s received a couple letters from Canadian visitors saying they would not return to the desert because they were disappointed by tariffs against Canada. But he doesn’t know how widespread that is. 

The Washington Post on Sunday published letters from some of those snowbirds who are choosing to feather their nests elsewhere this year. Most of the letters are characteristically polite, despite the boycott. 

California’s Legislative Black Caucus is demanding answers about a classroom fight at Jehue Middle School in Colton last week, in which a tall, male student knocked a small Black female student unconscious.

Another student caught the incident on video as the larger male student restrained the smaller girl. The girl threw a laptop at the boy and he slammed her head onto a table. She fell to the floor and lay motionless until another student helped her up.

“The brutal assault of a young Black student in her middle school classroom in Colton, CA is sickening,” said state Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson, a San Diego Democrat, in a statement on behalf of the caucus. “Physical violence against any student, on any campus, is unacceptable and demands immediate action.”

It appeared from the video that the boy was not Black, and news reports described him as Latino. Enrollment at the school is 91% Latino, 4.6% Black and 1.8% white, according to the California School Dashboard. Some commenters on a social media post said Black students are outnumbered and unsafe on the campus; some called for deportation of Latinos.

The Colton Police Department said in a statement it issued citations to both 14-year-old students and released them to their parents. The department is investigating the case with the Rialto Unified School District and will refer it to the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, Juvenile Division.

San Bernardino County firefighters rescued people attending a climate action conference in Big Bear Thursday, after a snowstorm stranded the conference participants and their buses.

About 300 people had gathered at YMCA Camp Whittle in Fawnskin, when a blizzard struck the day they were set to leave. Some walked out in 2 feet of snow to get to buses waiting near San Bernardino County Fire Station 96, 2 miles from the camp.

The buses were stuck in the snow, however, so firefighters invited conference attendees to warm up in the station. They transported dozens more people from the camp to the station using a snow cat, a truck-sized vehicle designed for blizzard conditions.

Once the buses were able to run, they loaded the passengers and drove down the mountain, but two buses got stuck on Highway 18 and needed more assistance. Fire officials said the rescues underscore the importance of preparing for winter conditions in the San Bernardino Mountains.

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Thanks for reading,