OpEd: Trump Tariffs Tank Market and hit Weho

The stock markets are reeling.   All major indexes closed at their low into Friday’s close and continued their downtrend in the after market hours.   The market crash of 1987 followed a similar pattern leading into Black Monday.  The stock market crashed an additional 22.6% on that day.  This monday, April 7th, 2025 will be another test of the market’s resilience or an unraveling of the world’s economy.  

West Hollywood’s hotels, nightlife, restaurants and other businesses are a magnet for all those who come to the Los Angeles area.   Trump tariffs suppress tourism.    The ripple effects will be felt throughout the region,  especially West Hollywood’s hospitality industry.      

While Trump levies these tariffs in the name of ‘workers’ it sounds eerily familiar to mistakes made by the West Hollywood City Council when they created the highest minimum wage and worker package in the world.  The city council should be applauding the Trump tariffs in the name of ‘workers’.   It’s the same logic they used when they passed their ‘worker’ package which added surcharges on most restaurants checks in WeHo, and resulted in too many business closures.   Trump’s governing by decree is the same unilateral tactics our city council used when they pushed through that hotel worker ordinance citywide paying back their political donors at UNITE HERE Local 11.   There was little debate or discussion.   Horvath, Erickson, Shyne, acted just like Trump and his tight circle of sycophants when they did not advance a ‘study’ or ‘discussion’ with business leaders’ before creating a highest cost of labor in the region and nation in-balance.    

The LA Times reported “The Trump tariff strategy is a surefire loser”.  The Wall Street Journal Editorial calls Trumps tariff “the dumbest trade war in history”.   NBC Los Angeles reported ” This is bad, Port of LA is expected to see less cargo and job losses.”  Key drivers of the LA economy include trade from southeast Asia.   At our local establishments the cost of Tequila or guacamole at Taco Tuesday is bound to head higher due to new tariffs on goods imported from Mexico.   Reuters News Service reports “Trump tariffs set to drive up bar bills and wipe out spirits jobs.”   

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, which owns four hotels in West Hollywood, the Chamberlain, Le Parc Suites, the Montrose, and Hotel Ziggy has seen its stock plummet 50% off its 52-week high.   On the other hand Grindr, a publicly traded West Hollywood based company has not been affected by any of the recent news or tariffs.   Grindr is up over 100% the past year even with the market turmoil.    

One might say that West Hollywood is entering a period of ‘stagflation’.    Stagflation occurs when you have ‘rising costs’ and increased unemployment without growth.   All around Weho we can see stagflation in our micro-bubble.   Rising costs, mandated wages on auto-pilot upward.   There is a declining retail landscape and many West Hollywood employee’s have lost their jobs.   West Hollywood hotels are showing a rising average daily room rate and a lower occupancy rate.   These are not positive statistics for the long term growth and affordability in WeHo.  

2020-2030 may come to be known as the lost decade in West Hollywood.   Projects such as the Melrose Triangle, Robertson Lane, the Viper Room, and French Marketplace will each have been idle for ten years or more before completion.    Tariffs, rising costs on financing and building materials and a high cost of labor do not bode well for West Hollywood’s future as an inclusive, affordable city.   We can blame Trump and the tariffs but in reality its all began with our own city council acting much like Trump when they got elected.   Both our city council nor Donald Trump anticipated the results of their policies.   The rest of us are left paying the price.