Birmingham, ala. (AP) -an a day on which the stock market markets all over the world fall steeply, the chairman of the Republican Party in Alabama, John Wahl, headed a celebration of the president whose global tariffs had triggered the sale.
Without mentioning the Wall Street roller coaster and the global economic uncertainty, the “Trump Victory Dinner” and the broader national moment – to a triumph. And for everyone, the President Donald Trump, his agenda and the “America First” name, which supports everything, rejects an offer: “The Republican party Alabama will buy a flight ticket for every country in the world that you want to go to.”
The audience of election – a meeting of lobbyists and donors, state legislators, local party officers and basic activists – laughed, applauded and sometimes in the city center of Birmingham, the uncommon democratic stronghold of the country in one of the country’s republican states. The son of President Donald Trump Jr. triggered the perhaps greatest enthusiasm with an unapologist table party -political place and even repeated the lie that his father won the election in 2020 about the Democrat Joe Biden.
But beyond cheerleading, there were signs of careful optimism and some concerned whispering about Trump’s comprehensive tariffs, the details of his deportation policy and the aggressive upgrading of his Ministry for Government Efficiency.
This does not mean that Trump or the Republicans are at risk that they will lose their grip in Alabama, where the GOP has held all nationwide offices, the legislator dominates and has won any vote of the president since 1980. But it is a remarkable wrinkle where a place where the selection of the foundation and the task of Trump has long been tasting. The oval office. And all cracks for Trump in Alabama – where he received 65% of the votes in 2024 – could have problems elsewhere, since the effects of a seismic change in US policy throughout the economy and society.
“There are some concerns, some discussions,” said John Merrill, a former State Secretary, about what Trump’s on -site agenda will mean. He admitted that Alabama was “a net recipient of the federal government, and the economic model that Trump has Trump has, which means that he withdraws more money from Washington than the taxpayers send the Federal Government.
“It is a big risk,” said Merrill, who was wearing a Trump 45-47 pin on his lapel, an allusion to the two term of the president.
Bundes financing is a elixir of life in Alabama
Blocks south of the elaborate, in which the Republicans have convened, sits at Alabama at Birmingham Health System, a regional jewel, which depends on the research of grants from the National Institutes of Health.
The Republican Attorney General of Alabama, Steve Marshall, who is listed as the “silver sponsor” of the GALA, did not compete with the Democratic lawyers who sued the Trump government to stop the cancellation of certain research financing streams that the congress has already approved.
Most medical services to UAB and many other hospitals across the state are covered by Medicare and Medicaid, two of the largest federal expenditure. Alabama is one of the most generous federal overestimations for medicaid financing because his income of Pro is to the lower levels.
A miniature drive to the west towards Tuscaloosa is a gigantic Mercedes-Benz elaborate, one of the earliest examples for foreign car manufacturers who come to the American south, where state laws are hostile. The systems have delivered jobs to wages with higher standards, but in some cases lower than in union shops in the Great Lakes around Detroit. Many suppliers have followed in the south, but not so many that the assembly systems do not yet import many parts that will now be exposed to Trump’s tariffs.
Terry Martin, a GOP committee committee in the county in the Tallapoosa district, said he supported the tariffs as a lever. Trump has “something to negotiate,” said Martin. But “the parts that come from overseas … it will take at least at short notice to the award winner,” he said.
Agriculture is still a dominant Alabama industry. Meat processing plants in the north and in row harvest in the south depend on Migrant Labor, the Merrill, the former State Secretary, involved in workers who are both legally and illegally in the USA. Alabama, he remembered, said goodbye to the strict immigration during Barack Obama’s presidency, just to roll back after the industry leaders complained about an exhausted workforce.
In an interview after the gala, a choice pursued a more differentiated approach than on the podium.
“It is possible to secure our border and still take migrants into account that deserve to be here,” he said. “This must be a two -pointed approach.”
Interstate Project and Medicaid Fund could be at risk
Back in Birmingham, Interstate 65 divides the city. The aging, increasingly overloaded artery has a local priority for the expansion. The proposal supports the two Republican senators of Alabama, Tommy Tuberville and Katie Britt. However, US interstate projects are usually a 90-10 division, which means that 90% of the money comes from Washington, 10% from the state.
This financing – along with money for schools, medicaid and other areas – could be at risk with Trump consultant Elon Musk and Doge, who bears Trump’s blessing for the sloping penalty of expenses. GOP legislators who control the congress have supported Trump’s agenda, which also includes the department of the educational department.
The GOP chairman of Tallapoosa County, Denise Bates, said “absolutely”, there is a way that mastiff could go too far. “I hope there are guardrails,” she said, noticing that she was once a local school board.
“Am I 100%to get rid of the Ministry of Education? I can’t say that I am,” she said, adding an expression that Merrill’s description of the state as a whole is similar. “You know we are a net receiver.”
But for all reservations offered in one-on-one discussions, the GOP quantity cheered when Tuberville, the former football coach Trump Acolyt on the Capitol Hill, a Plainspoken defense from Musk and his pop-up agency said: “We are broken dead.” And they roared when he spoke to tariffs.
“It has passed that we make up the field of competition and tell the rest of the world that he should get out of ass and pay their fair proportion,” said Tuberville.
Trump remains popular
Bates argued that Alabama’s hug of Trump’s “America First” prost was simply not simply loyalty to the president. She said it reflected generations of voters who observe the decline in the steel industry in Birmingham, and after the North American free trade agreement was concluded in 1994, the textile industry left Mexico and finally in Southeast Asia.
“We just want jobs,” she said.
Nevertheless, Senator Jabo Wagoner, the longest -reigning member of Alabama’s legislature, made it clear that Trump’s visceral appointment for the “most popular president since Ronald Reagan, undoubtedly”.
Wahl remembered Trump’s first massive rally outdoors as a presidential candidate: 30,000 people at the Ladd-Pleebles stage in Mobile, Alabama, in August 2015.
Wahl, who has a butterfly farm on the outside, perhaps said the best way to understand Trump and Alabama, and this moment of uncertainty is to see a president who at least deserves the advantage of doubt in the state.
“He will all know that he is serious,” said the chairman. Trump will “bring people to the negotiating table. We will actually see how the negotiator manages business.”
