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Gateway workers feel duped after Trump ploy

By: Charles Stile
Political Stile
USA today Network

..... The leader of the Laborers' International Union of North America endorsed Democrats Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris for president.. Still, some rank and file workers cast their votes for Donald Trump and his :Make American Great Again" agenda.
..... But some of those hard hat workers are struggling with buyer's remorse. The alleged champion of the lunch-all working man - President Donald Trump - turned the largest infrastructure project in the nation int his latest gold-plated vanity project. in one of the recent and more narcissistic twists of the second Trump administration, the president appearance held funding of the $16 billion Gateway rail and tunnel project hostage - unless either New York's Penn Station or Dulles International Antiproton in norther Virgina are renamed after him.
..... In the meantime, payments to contractors working on the Gateway project dried up on February 6 [2026] and the Tonnelle Avenue construction site in North Bergen (and four other work sites), which was projected to have up to 1,000 worked drilling through he Palisades toward the economic rebirth of the Northeast and the country, remained idle.
..... That is about to change. A federal judge ordered the release of $205 million in suspended payments for the project on February 13. [2026] the Trump administration said it would begin to release delayed reimbursements, but Gateway officials said the work will remain paused until they actually have the money in hand.
..... Still, the incident may have permanently soured the pro-Trump hard hats. The pathetic and necessary stunt plunged their families into economic uncertainty.

Gateway union workers who voted for Trump are angry

..... Signs of discontent were evident among the rank and file before Judge Jeannette Vargas of the Southern District of New York ordered the funds release late last week. [02/13/2026]
..... "I got a little girl at home. I got my wife pregnant with another one, and I'm looking to keep on providing for my family," said Guilio Petroni, a "proud member" of Local 731 on an Instagram post. "Personally, I voted for Donald Trump and I'm hoping that he's the president who I voted for and he releases these funds."
..... Gary Keogh, a union foreman, also went to Instagram to make a fervent plea to Trump. Like Petroni, he struck a diplomatic tone, not willing to call out the great Deliverer of the Common Man. but it was clear whom Keogh held primarily responsible for the chaos.
..... "A lot of the guys here have stood behind President Trump. We hope that he can come to the table with (Senate Minority Leader) chuck Schumer and everybody and meets a middle ground and makes this happen," Keogh pleaded. It's all on you know. President Trump, the ball is in your court."
..... The union's leadership, not surprisingly, dispatched with the niceties.
..... "Imagine begin here at work on Friday, [02/06/2026] doing your trade, moving this equipment, moving this dirt around, and then today [02/13/2026] you don't have a job because the president of the United States wants something named after him," said Brent Booker, general president of the Labores. "this isn't an America First agenda, this is a Trump first agenda, and we're got to put that aside and get our members back to work."
..... Of course, the union rank-and-file's criticism and their protests - with Governor Milie Sherrill at their side and with bullhorns wielding along the shoulder of U.S. Route 1 and 9 - were part of the expected push-back to Trump's brazen decision to keep the project in a deep freeze.
..... but the Gateway fiasco also exposed Trump's true attitude toward blue-collar working people in the Northeast - where he grew up and built his reputation, such as it is, as a real-estate mogul.
..... A real champion of lunch-ail Americans those New Jersey neighbors of ours struggling in grueling jobs with uncertain futures, would never pull a stunt like this, especially when the money for a project like Gateway has already been approved and shovels were already in the ground. A true champion of the working class would understand how crucial these jobs are for those workers - and our region's economic survival.
..... But the truth is that the crypts-profiting president has never been a sincere ally of the working class. he has always been a man of Mar-a-Lago, with sycophantic members of the corporate elite milling around his ballroom, eager to trade favors for access.
..... Trump's Gateway behavior is a bitter betrayal of their support. they stood by him at rallies, voted for him and prayed for him when his life was in peril after the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024. But there is no returning the favor at the Gateway tunnel.
.....These workers found themselves in the cross-hairs of one of Trump's deep blue targets -a project shared between two liberal Northeast states that rejected him in his three bids for the White House. Gateway was reduced to just another useful tool to antagonize Schumer and fellow New Yorkers, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, who rebuffed Trump in multiple budget negotiations and just about everything else.
..... The workers he allegedly cared about are just collateral damage.

Gateway's pause has dire ramifications

..... The ramifications extend beyond the political logjam of the moment. Future public works projects - and the people work work on them - are also at risk. It could damage the United States as a reliable business partner. The Gateway Development Corporation explained the concern in its filing in federal claims court last week. [02/02/2026]
..... "If the federal government can breach its funding agreements without legal consequences and force public works projects to stop midstream - leaving massive holes in the ground and expensive equipment on-site, then private investors and contractors, state and local entities and public development commissions like GDC will be increasing reluctant to undertake major projects that could similar fall victim to unexpected funding suspensions," according to the filing.
..... The Gateway debacle also comes at a time when blue-collar voters who lack a college degree are straight to sour on Trump in national polls. some of their declining support has been driven by economic anxiety and a waning enthusiasm for his inconsistent tariff policies. They have also recoiled, like most voters' groups, at the heavy-handed e and violent deportation sweeps, especially those that have unfolded in Minneapolis.
..... Trump's Gateway strategy - if it can be called that by anyone with a straight face - is also putting the screws to the president's fellow Republicans in New Jersey. Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican candidate for governor last year, [2025] had to control himself to avoid outright criticizing the petty Trump when he first put the breaks on the project last October. [2025]
..... Ciattarelli lost is bid for governor by 13 percentage points.
..... U.S. Representative Thomas H. Kean Jr., who represents the commuter-heavy 7th Congressional District , summoned enough expatriation to sputter out the obvious hat "delays of any kind put jobs at risk" but refused to lay nay blame on trump.
..... Republican Joe Hathaway - the Randolph mayor who is running to replace Sherrill in the once-ruby 11th congressional district she turned blue in the Trump-backlash "blue wave" of 2018 - was forced to distance himself from Trump, declaring in a post that "the president should not be suing gateway as a pawn."
..... Trump's antic left a candidate in a district Republicans many well have a chance of taking back with no choice.
..... Trump's unchecked impulses delayed a vital project, put jobs at risk and may have turned loyalists into enemies. And for what exactly? What was the Trump endgame? eggs on his face? angry workers? angry commuters? Did he get some thrill in raising the blood pressure of liberal Democrats in the New York Metropolitan area?
..... another union Gateway worker, Lamonte "Deuce" Richardson of Newark, believed hat the enormity and importance of the project would be a priory in Trump's America First agenda and fall into the same grand building tradition that gave us a Pulaski Skyway, the New Jersey Turnpike and even the Secaucus Junction train hub. He mused that in the past, a workers' strike might imperil the work and, in the process, jeopardize the ability of New Jerseyans to get across the river.
..... "Release these funds so we can go to work," Richardson said bluntly. A federal judge heard Richardson loud and clear. and Trump? It fell on deaf ears.

..... Charlies Stile is a veteran New Jersey political columnist. For unlimited access to his unique insights into New Jersey political power structure and his powerful watchdog work, please subscribe or activate your digital account today. Email: stile@northjersey.com

 

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