April vacation week is here for the General Assembly, so prepare for a more active phase of the session once lawmakers return to the roost. You can follow me through the week on Bluesky, threads and X. Here we go. 

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1. STORY OF THE WEEK: Decades after supporters lauded the North American Free Trade Agreement as a way to add American jobs, there’s plenty of criticism of NAFTA from both the left and the right. Critics blame the pact for hollowing out American manufacturing and hurting the middle class, even if those trends were already in motion for years before. Regardless, President Trump has set his sights on making major shifts in global trade. But markets plummeted and business leaders fretted after Trump unveiled reciprocal tariffs. The president yanked most of them back a week later with a 90-day pause, saying people “were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid.” Reaction is mostly breaking along partisan lines, although some Republicans expressed misgivings about Trump’s approach. In a statement, Democratic U.S. Sen. Jack Reed said Americans deserve better: “It was clear from the get go that the Trump Administration hadn’t done its homework on tariffs. They literally miscalculated on the math and threw the global economy into disarray.  Due to the Trump Administration’s recklessness, our economy shed trillions of dollars and consumers and businesses were left holding the bag for higher prices.” On the other side of the aisle, Republicans such as R.I. House GOP Leader Mike Chippendale (R-Foster) remain firmly behind Trump. Regarding the pause on reciprocal tariffs, Chippendale said during a Political Roundtable interview, “I don’t think we know for certain if this was part of his plan, if this was always something that he was potentially looking to happen once there was a reaction. But I do know this — that every single thing he does, as soon as he does, it is met with robust criticism from the far left, the radicals on the left and and frankly, the media as well.” In Rhode Island, the economy remains a work in progress, with familiar economic challenges remaining after Gov. Gina Raimondo left local office. Whether global trade can be reordered on a political timetable is a big question. In the shorter term, elections in November 2026 will signal whether Trump’s trade approach resounds more to the benefit of Republicans or Democrats.

2. TAKING STOCK: Was market manipulation or insider trading afoot with the unveiling and subsequent pause of reciprocal tariffs? Some Democrats are raising that question, while the White House is downplaying the concern. Democratic U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner, the lead sponsor of a bill to ban members of Congress from trading stocks, is joining with a group of reps to call for House members to file trading reports for the period between April 2-9. “It would be unconscionable for any Member of Congress to use their personal position to benefit financially, especially in a time where Americans across the country are experiencing financial chaos,” Magaziner wrote as part of a group letter to U.S. House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson. 

3. DISSENTING MATTERS: Thousands of people streamed through Providence last Saturday, ahead of a rally at Kennedy Plaza, as part of a national “hands off” protest against the Trump administration.

4. FEDERAL FALLOUT IN RHODE ISLAND AND NEARBY:

***Portuguese immigrants who settled in New Bedford and overstayed their visas are self-deporting because of their fears about staying, reports Paul C. Kelly Campos.

***Edesia, the North Kingstown company that makes a fortified peanut butter vital for fighting childhood malnutrition around the globe, is seeking clarity amid Trump administration cuts, reports David Wright.

***Olivia Ebertz continues to keep a close eye on developments at Brown University, including how the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has expanded an investigation into Brown and how the Trump administration has targeted students with visa revocations. 

5. HEALTHCARE CRISIS: The consequence of lower reimbursement rates for doctors in Rhode Island than in Connecticut and Massachusetts continues to take a toll, with the announcement by Anchor Medical Associates that it plans to disband in the not too distant future. Asked if the state has fallen down in addressing this situation, R.I. House GOP Leader Mike Chippendale said on Political Roundtable, “If you can drive 20 minutes into Massachusetts or Connecticut, make 30% more in your salary, you’d be a fool not to do it. And the state of Rhode Island has systemically failed to support our health care system, and the people of our state are paying dearly for it.”

6. GENERAL ACCOUNTABILITY, PART I: When supporters staged a news conference this week to unveil the latest effort to create a state Office of Inspector General, state Rep. Jon Brien (I-Woonsocket) anticipated some of the pushback. “What you’re going to hear, without question, is that if people really wanted an inspector general, what they would have done is they would have overwhelmingly passed [last year] the constitutional convention question,” Brien said. But, he added, there’s no guarantee that a ConCon would have resulted in an IG. “The point I’m making,” Brien continued, “is that if the question last election cycle had been, ‘Do you want an office of inspector general in the state of Rhode Island,’ it would have passed overwhelmingly.” When House Speaker Joe Shekarchi’s office was asked to comment on the IG proposal, this was part of the response via statement: “Ken Block and other pro-Constitutional Convention advocates cited the creation of an inspector general’s office as one of the top issues and organized a campaign, yet the voters in November overwhelmingly rejected the convention.” For his part, Block called Shekarchi’s “bizarre response to efforts to bring an inspector general to Rhode Island” part of “his pattern of thwarting efforts to further good government in the state.” Via email, Block added: “The most constitutionally powerful politician in Rhode Island (elected by just 5,684 RI voters in 2024) would prefer to exercise his power without independent oversight. The speaker is against a governor’s line-item veto, a mechanism to help control spending that 44 other states have and that close to 70% of polled RI voters want. Rhode Island desperately needs tools to help remove the most wasteful spending from the speaker’s opaque budget process. Remember Dr. Pedro’s $1 million? That ridiculous pork came straight out of the previous speaker’s budget process.” (Don’t remember the “Pedro affair” Block refers to? Here’s a link.)

7. GENERAL ACCOUNTABILITY, PART II: A Bloomberg investigation focused on Eleanor Slater Hospital as an example of how “Medicaid’s gatekeepers fail to catch fraud, and often don’t try.” Excerpt: “A Rhode Island hospital kept billing for nursing home care and Medicaid kept writing checks, no questions asked. No questions about costs as high as $550,000 per patient, per year. No questions about invoices for services rarely allowed at nursing homes, including physically and chemically restraining patients. No questions about why some medical patients remained hospitalized for years with diagnoses as benign as high blood pressure. In fact, state-owned Eleanor Slater Hospital wasn’t a nursing home at all. It was a psychiatric facility where some patients remained locked up for years, and Medicaid doesn’t cover costs at psychiatric facilities with more than 16 beds.”

8. THE PUSH ON PAYDAY: Advocates have been trying without success for about 15 years to change how payday lenders can in Rhode Island charge the equivalent of 260% in annual interest. A new effort was launched this week with a Statehouse news conference. Senate President Dominick Ruggerio has been the main impediment to forward motion on the issue, so perhaps change will come when he — at some point — passes leadership of the chamber. For now, the 2013 grassroots campaign in support of same-sex marriage, which marshaled voters to share their views with lawmakers, remains an example of how to influence the status quo on Smith Hill.

9. MEDIA NOTES, PART I: The venerable Water Robinson, editor-at-large for The Boston Globe, was recently named the first Taricani Visiting Journalist at URI, thanks to a $350,000 gift by Laurie White (‘81) that will expand the lecture series named for her late husband. According to a news release, “Visiting journalists will co-teach courses, lead workshops, and partner with faculty to conduct research. These individuals will share their expertise with Harrington School students, providing mentorship, guidance, and insights into the world of professional journalism.”

10. MEDIA NOTES, PART II: The Blackstone Valley Call & Times (fka the Woonsocket Call and Pawtucket Times) switched this week from home delivery to mail delivery, a difference touted as a win for subscribers, even if it may cause the news to arrive later than in the past. 

11. MEDIA NOTES, PART III: David Enrich, deputy investigations editor for The New York Times, is the author of Muder The Truth: Fear, the First Amendment and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful. Click here to read or listen to his interview with NPR’s Michel Martin. 

12. REEL NEWS: The Rhode Island Film & TV Office announced this week that “Academy Award nominated writer/director, M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs, Unbreakable) and best-selling author Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook, A Walk to Remember) are teaming up on a supernatural romantic thriller that will be filmed this summer in the Ocean State. The original narrative is a collaboration between Sparks and Shyamalan, with Sparks writing a book and Shyamalan writing a screenplay independently, based on the same original love story. The Blinding Edge Pictures film will star Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko, Road House, Presumed Innocent).” Added Film & TV Office Executive Director Steven Feinberg: “It is a dream come true to have one of my favorite filmmakers making an original movie here in our beloved Ocean State. Night is a visionary who always attracts top-notch talent in front of and behind the camera.  Rhode Island is a special location steeped in history, beauty and great mystery.  With all of these amazing ingredients in the hands of a master filmmaker, we can expect M. Night Shyamalan and his outstanding team to tantalize our senses and make a movie we can all be proud of.”

13. PAWTUCKET SOCCER: West Warwick-based Centreville Bank has secured the naming rights for the new home in Pawtucket of Rhode Island FC. The home opener is expected to be sold out on May 3.

14. KICKER: Now that RI DEM has signed off on bringing specified roadkill home if you have the necessary permit, TGIF is here with a reminder that you can cook the goods under the hood of your car to have the meal ready by the time you return to your chateau or triple-decker. An Amphicar is more thematically appropriate for Rhode Island calamari, with music of your choice.

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