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To the Editor:
“I Have Never Been More Afraid for My Country’s Future,” by Thomas L. Friedman (column, April 17), is an alarm we all need to hear. His main point couldn’t be clearer: The things that have made America strong — our rule of law, our global partnerships and our ability to lead in innovation — are being systematically undermined by a leader more focused on revenge than building a future.
While other countries, like China, are investing in clean energy, advanced technology and long-term strategy, we’re clinging to the past and isolating ourselves in the process. If we don’t start paying attention, demanding accountability and thinking beyond the next news cycle, we will wake up in a country that’s poorer, more divided and left behind.
We ignore Mr. Friedman’s warning at our own peril.
Robert Stewart
Chantilly, Va.
To the Editor:
Like Thomas L. Friedman, I have never been more afraid for my country’s future. But not because of the mistaken economic policies he focuses upon, dangerous as those may be. By far the most dangerous and repugnant reality of President Trump’s second term is his ongoing violation of constitutional guardrails and democratic norms so that he can assume a level of power never intended for any president.
This threat is not simply an undesirable context for potentially fatal economic actions, as Mr. Friedman indicates. Rather, those guardrails are more fundamental to a strong economic future than any particular policy action. Even more important, they are absolutely essential to the decent society that economic activity and government are supposed to promote.
Robert Ward
Albany, N.Y.
To the Editor:
Thomas L. Friedman’s column captures, with characteristic urgency and clarity, the Trump administration’s surrealism and strategic incoherence.
His critique of President Trump’s nostalgia-driven economic nationalism — especially the fetishization of coal at the expense of clean technology innovation — is timely and damning. Few writers can as effectively tie in the everyday absurdities of this administration to their long-term global implications.
