During a recent hearing on trade policy, Rep. Gregory Meeks mocked the idea that America’s trade deficits constitute a “national emergency.” He pointed out—almost smugly—that the U.S. has run deficits for over four decades, and since neither Republican nor Democratic presidents have called it an emergency, it must not be one. But that’s not logic—that’s willful complacency. And it’s unacceptable coming from someone who claims to represent working-class communities, particularly Black Americans, who’ve borne the brunt of this economic mismanagement.
If your family or business operated at a deficit for 40 straight years, you wouldn’t call it “normal”—you’d call it a financial crisis. So why do politicians like Meeks get to shrug off a $34 trillion national debt like it’s a policy footnote?
This is not just political laziness—it’s dangerous hypocrisy. Because while Meeks lectures about congressional procedure and constitutional process, what legislation has he passed to reduce the debt? What serious proposal has he introduced to bring jobs back, cut spending, or reduce the structural deficit that is bleeding this country dry?
The truth is, there is none.
Search his legislative record. You’ll find committee statements, soundbites, and symbolic resolutions—but you will not find a single serious piece of legislation from Rep. Meeks aimed at reducing the national debt, reforming entitlement spending, renegotiating trade, or eliminating wasteful programs. There is no blueprint. There is no roadmap. There is only excuse-making dressed up as statesmanship.
And what is he proposing now? Nothing. No plan, no urgency—just partisan shots at Trump and vague claims that tariffs should be left to Congress. That’s not leadership. That’s retreating behind procedure to avoid taking responsibility.
Let’s be clear: when the U.S. spends more than it produces and relies on imports to feed its consumer addiction, that is not economic strength—it’s economic dependency. Persistent trade deficits, especially those that erode domestic industries, represent more than numbers on a spreadsheet. They mean shuttered factories, gutted communities, and lost opportunity—especially in cities where Black America once thrived through manufacturing and industrial jobs.
This is not a defense of Donald Trump. It is a direct indictment of the hypocrisy that lives in the heart of the Democratic Party. You cannot claim to stand with working people while defending policies that destroy the very industries that used to sustain them. You cannot claim to be an advocate for equity while defending a debt-driven, globalist framework that has helped erase Black middle-class progress.
It’s even more insulting when that message comes from a Black elected official who knows the reality on the ground. When a politician like Rep. Meeks dismisses decades of national debt as “nothing new,” he is effectively saying that Black communities should continue living with economic decline. That’s not representation. That’s betrayal.
And if $34 trillion in debt—growing faster than our economy—is not a national emergency, then what is? If the people in charge don’t see it as a problem, they should not be anywhere near the reins of power.
The American people see the game. They know both parties are guilty of overspending, underdelivering, and blaming each other instead of fixing anything. But the insult lands harder when the politician smiling on the hearing floor is supposed to understand the stakes for communities like ours.
There is no virtue in normalizing dysfunction. There is no courage in defending failure. There is no logic in pretending decades of red ink are “just how things work.”
And there is no excuse for a Black lawmaker to defend policies that are financially suffocating the very people he claims to represent.
If Meeks has no plan to reduce the debt, no legislation to reform trade, and no willingness to call this what it is—a generational crisis—then he has no business holding public office.
Because if this isn’t an emergency, then we might as well stop pretending we have a government that works at all.
