Utah, the crossroads of the world?

A strong case for that title can be made.

Among the accolades the state has received in recent years, including the title as the nation’s fastest-growing state during the previous decade, this one might catch people by surprise. Crossroads of the West, yes, but the world? However, the numbers don’t lie.

Utah ranks 16th among states in terms of per capita export values, despite its population ranking only 30th. That is according to Natalie Gochnour, associate dean for the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business and director of the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.

She also noted that Utah has the third-highest per capita export ranking among Western states, which is higher even than California.

The Gardner Policy Institute reports that Utah companies exported a combined $17.4 billion in 2023, which supported almost 72,000 jobs and generated about $4 billion in earnings. This also added $8 billion to Utah’s economy and $16.7 billion to the state’s gross industry sales output.

Add to that the fact that Utah exported to 200 nations last year, including $7.2 billion (most of it unwrought gold) to its No. 1 trading partner, the United Kingdom. Canada and Mexico were second and third on the export list.

Those are a lot of numbers to digest. But what they add up to is this: When it comes to trade, an impressive amount takes place at this crossroads. And that volume of trade leads to influence.

Small wonder, then, that Utah has attracted enough attention to also attract several marquee names to a Crossroads of the World Summit, sponsored by World Trade Center Utah and Zions Bank and held at Salt Lake City’s Grand America hotel last week.

That list included former U.S. President George W. Bush, former Mexican President Vicente Fox and former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It’s hard to attract a lineup like that without bona fides.

Add to this the lineups Utah Valley University has attracted in recent years: a China Summit that included former ambassador to China Jon Huntsman Jr., current ambassador Nicholas Burns and a list of experts and journalists; a United Nations conference that drew many U.N. delegates and featured the introduction of 75 scholarly papers; and a conference on Ukraine that featured consul generals from Ukraine, Poland, Romania and Spain, as well as a video appearance by Ryan Guirlinger of the U.S. Department of State.

Utah’s crossroads, then, is expanding to include serious international policy discussions as well as trade.

But it would be wrong to underestimate the value of the trade on its own. In addition to gold, Utah exports a lot of computer/electronic parts, chemicals and miscellaneous manufacturing commodities. However, the state’s best asset may be something homegrown — its people.

During last week’s summit, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox told of a conversation he had recently with a well-known hedge fund billionaire he declined to identify. The billionaire told him Utah’s strongest asset was a population of smart, hardworking people who prioritize their families.

“Those are Utah values and they used to be American values,” Cox said. “Utah is what America used to be and, I hope, what it can be again.”

The president of World Trade Center Utah, Jonathan Freedman, characterized the summit as trying to explore international trade as a place “where diplomacy and business intersect.” That process naturally includes a cooperative spirit between government and business. The trade center, he said, offers “insights to place Utah companies at the front of global commerce.”

Not all the news concerning trade was good, however. Fox, the former Mexican president, spoke about the challenges concerning migration, which has traditionally contributed mightily to the U.S. economy. Mexico, he said, is approaching a labor crisis and may not be able to provide the labor Utah and other states depend on.

This echoes the concerns many demographers have about a diminishing birth rate internationally. It could affect Utah and other Western states as well.

Fox also warned about tyrannical dictators in some Latin American countries. His answer to this is greater cooperation between Mexico, Canada and the United States. That’s a good recipe for solving a lot of problems.

And that greater cooperation can mean only greater trade coming through Utah, the crossroads of the world.

Landowners are blocking public access to a renowned river known for its fishing – because of anglers they say are trespassing on their property by standing in the river to cast.

The controversy surrounds a stretch of the Lower Provo River in Utah, some 50 miles from Salt Lake City.

There, fishermen have operated undeterred for years, due to a 2010 statute that allowed them to float on rivers but forbade them from setting foot on the riverbeds.

But law enforcement in Wasatch County rarely enforce that stipulation – spurring people like Steve Ault, a relative of a former governor who owns 3,000 acres along the river, to formally request a shift in the county line so his property sits elsewhere.

In interviews administered both this and last week, the 70-year-old complained about fishermen repeatedly accessing his land, and a lack of law enforcement he said is to blame.

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But law enforcement in Wasatch County rarely enforce that stipulation – spurring people like Steve Ault, a relative of a former governor who owns 3,000 acres along the river, to formally request a shift in the county line so his property sits elsewhere

He’s trying to shift the county line such that his property resides in Utah County — not Wasatch — with hopes that county’s Sheriff’s Office will do something about it.

Speaking to both The Salt Lake Tribune and Fox 13, he said he does not necessarily mind people fishing on his land – he just wants to charge them an access fee.

‘If you take [a state coalition that won a legal battle for public access to the river in 2017], and apply this to any other private property owner, you wouldn’t want people in your backyard and have a right to be there,’ Ault told the Tribune. 

‘You would never allow someone to walk through your yard to get to a gate that goes to a park, right?’  he said, slamming the Utah Stream Access Coalition as ‘the Utah Socialist Access Coalition.

‘But that’s a very similar situation here.’ 

‘We can own property here, and we can have businesses, and we can do things that they can’t in other parts of the world, and yet,’ he continued, 

‘[But] there’s groups and individuals that would take that away.’

Ault is the brother-in-law to former Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, who served as the 17th governor of the red state from 2009 to 2021.

Speaking to both The Salt Lake Tribune and Fox 13 , he said he does not necessarily mind people fishing on his land – he just wants to charge them an access fee

During his tenure, the Utah Stream Access Coalition won a suit against the state – one that found that this particular stretch of river was ‘navigable’ and thus public, due to local laws. 

By the state’s definition, ‘navigable’ means a waterway that is large enough to be used to transport goods and people, which the coalition believes it is.

The Utah divisions of Forestry, Fire and State Lands and Wildlife Resources, however, has yet to confirm their belief – a hindrance compounded by the fact the state last year passed a law that would punish anglers who access rivers that run through private land.

But that’s only if local officials actually enforce the law – something Ault says is not happening.

Instead, he said he’s been force to post ‘no trespassing’ signs about his sprawling property, despite living in a home dozens of miles away.

To ensure no one is getting the best of him, he has hired a security guard – one he said finds his signs trashed just about every week, tattered and in need of a replacement.

He further claimed to the Tribune that the guard also routinely finds trash left behind by people they suspect are anglers, due to the the abundance of trout in the area, and the fact that the route that straddles the river is somewhat less traveled.

Ault is the brother-in-law to former Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, who served as the 17th governor of the red state from 2009 to 2021

To ensure no one is getting the best of him, Ault said he has hired a security guard – one he said finds his signs trashed just about every week, tattered and in need of a replacement. Pictured, a fisherman standing in the river to cast, which is technically illegal

It’s even more empty now, after a Utah Department of Transportation contractor razed hundreds of trees last year to make room for a state-sanctioned trail that has yet to be built.

In an interview with the local Fox affiliate this past Wednesday, Ault said he has taken issue with this as well – claiming to own portions of the property that were dug up.

‘It’s the worst, in my opinion, one of the worst environmental disasters this state has ever seen,’ Ault told the outlet. 

Recalling how he was ‘in shock’ after stumbling across the demolition, he said it had been his for almost forty years.

‘We own the land underneath the railroad tracks up to the edge of the highway,’ he said, pointing across the river. ‘We own 1,4000 acres that way.’

The land in question, however, is the state’s property, right outside his purview. 

That said, a 3.5 mile-gap between two trail networks it was meant to link remains, as construction has been called off due to the a litany of suits over who decides access to certain areas of the river, including a contested ‘fisherman’s easement’.

The easement applies to one side of the waterway, while another questions the railroad route on the other.

Both are being contested, with the latter seeing the trail project temporarily called off. 

Complicating matters, though, is a successful suit from the Utah Stream Access Coalition  against the state, which found that this particular stretch of river was ‘navigable’ and thus public, due to local laws

Ault told the Salt Lake Tribune that his hired guard also routinely finds trash left behind by people they suspect are anglers, due to the the abundance of trout in the area, and the fact the area is relatively less traveled

The gap won’t be filled unless the court rules in UDOT’s favor, but Ault views it as a victory.

Gesturing to now naked section of the river where ‘spectacular pines and quaking aspen and just big, big old trees’ once grew, he said he is considering a lawsuit, but the damage is already done.

‘It will take ten generations before it is ever even close to looking the same,’ he told Fox 13.

Now, he’s turned his attention to the controversy surrounding public river access, hoping to protect the land from further desecration.

He said the uncertainty stems largely from the Wasatch County attorney’s office, which prosecutes cases in the area.

They issued a statement this week saying the courts haven’t decided whether anglers accessing the land is technically trespassing, pointing to the multiple ongoing lawsuits. 

The county office still looks at cases individually on their own merits, the statement noted, saying that if cops and officials produce sufficient evidence, they would charge trespassers.

It’s even more empty now, after a Utah Department of Transportation contractor razed hundreds of trees last year to make room for a state-sanctioned trail that has yet to be built, which was called off when people like Ault questioned its legality

Ault’s request to redraw the county lines, meanwhile, has yet to be heard, as the state project remains in limbo

‘Wasatch County takes its responsibility to uphold the law very seriously,’ the office told The Tribune. 

‘However,’ they added, ‘we also take our ethical responsibility to not prosecute persons who may not be violating the law very seriously.’ 

Meanwhile, the state Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands hired a river analyst  tasked with settling such disputes six years ago, but the Tribune reported that person has since been relieved.

In the meantime, now such determinations have been made, and the shores lining the stretch of the Lower Provo river remain marred either by unfinished construction or trash from visitors, Ault said. 

Layne Edwards, who owns Park City Fly Fishing Guides, said this has left people from both sides frustrated, with no swift solution in sight.

“We have folks that are paying us to take them on a guided trip, and we have a responsibility to provide them with a positive experience,” Edwards told the Tribune, noting how his agency has not had any clients seek a tour along the river in more than a year.

‘And the last thing that I would want our guests to experience would be a bunch of negative energy.

He blamed the ‘no trespassing’ signs put up by property owners like Ault, and the ensuing conflicts it created between anglers and property owners. 

Ault’s request to redraw the county lines, meanwhile, has yet to be heard, as the state project – like local fishermen’s rights – remains in limbo.

DailyMail.com has reached out to the Wasatch County Attorney for comment and further clarification on the current situation.

It has spiraled down into little more than a platform for the political malcontented to rage and roar against the moderate Republican establishment.

While it might be understandable that Gov. Spencer Cox recently expressed his desire to maintain the caucus-convention pathway to Republican nominations, those of us who have gone around and around on this issue know that what the caucus-convention pathway is producing in no way benefits Utah.

What went on at the recent Utah Republican Party convention was shameful and an embarrassment. Yet, none of the ill-mannered behavior should have been unexpected. It is, undoubtedly, a direct result of the passage of SB54 during Utah’s 2014 legislative general session. The chickens are now simply coming home to roost.

I was one of only seven Utah state senators in 2014 who voted against SB54 and warned at that time: “The two factions through their candidates will rage and roar at each other, one declaring it represents ‘the people’ and the other declaring it represents ‘true Republicans.’”

I was convinced then and I remain convinced today that SB54 would do nothing to ameliorate the more extreme elements of the Utah Republican Party as it proposed to do. I was persuaded that, with the segregation of signature-gatherers from caucus-convention goers, resulting from SB54, the moderating influence on the growing populist far-right within the Republican Party would be lost forever.

Frankly, it was completely predictable the segregated factions would further clash with each other. The moderate Republican establishment pushing for SB54 sent a message to the populist far-right that they were less than and had to be checked — to be put in their place.

Should anyone be surprised when moderate governors and other moderate office seekers and holders get yelled at and voted against at the Republican convention? The moderate Republican establishment deployed its full force to render the populists far-right ineffectual by trying to isolate it, and all it accomplished was to further intensify resentments.

The establishment had three choices: 1. Fully embrace the populist far-right with an objective to influence it through actually working the caucus-convention system; 2. Kill the caucus-convention system all together through the proposed ballot initiative in 2014 that would have done away with the caucus/convention system in favor of a direct primary; or 3. Keep the caucus-convention system with a signature-gathering work around through SB54 as a compromise to save the caucus/convention path, intended to segregate and thereby check the influence of the growing populist far-right.

The establishment, ultimately seeking compromise by preserving the caucus-convention system, chose the worst of the three alternatives and now all of Utah has to live with regular Republican intra-party exhibitions of extreme polarization in Utah.

The moderate Republican establishment decided it was beneath it and an expense of too much effort to aggressively work the caucus-convention system to unite the party. And so then, the intensifying rage demonstrated from 2014 to the recent Republican convention is nothing less than a response to the establishment’s demonstrated elitism.

And frankly, the way Gov. Cox patronized the angry convention crowd did not help the situation. He only confirmed the establishment thinks it is better than the populist far-right — making certain the conflict and contention continues — spreading a spirit of scorn and continual contention throughout Utah.

In an effort to retract that spreading scorn and continual contention, I believe the Utah State Senate would pass legislation to end both the caucus-convention and signature-gathering paths for a single direct path to qualify for party primaries. The House, on the other hand, will be reluctant to give up the caucus-convention path, which has more sway with house representatives who are up for election every two years.

If there is in fact resistance on the part of the Legislature, there is an alternative option for a public initiative that will propose a direct primary election process — an alternative that would likely be successful. Nevertheless, for right now, both the legislative and public initiative alternatives should earnestly be considered and discussed.

In 2014, as a Utah state senator, I was a determined and outspoken defender of the caucus-convention process. Today, I am convinced it no longer productively serves Utah. Unfortunately, it has spiraled down into little more than a platform for the political malcontented to rage and roar against the moderate Republican establishment and those not obsequious to Donald Trump and his vitriol.

Besides it being a shameful and embarrassing display of discord and disruption, the caucus-convention process is producing nominated candidates hardly acceptable to Republican primary voters, whose interests the party is supposed to represent. While the work-around signature-gathering compromise has indeed ensured the nomination and election of some moderate candidates, it has not in any way moderated the caucus-convention nominations, nor the polarizing hostilities within the Republican Party.

On the contrary, it has enflamed the discontent and discord between the two Republican factions — spilling out of the doors of the caucuses and convention — spreading hate throughout Utah and radicalizing certain elements to revolt.

It is unfortunate that Gov. Cox and too many others cannot discern where all this is heading. Delaying, doing nothing, will not be good for the Republican Party, Utah and especially its rising generations, who inevitably are infected by the conflict and contention spread by their elders.

Stuart C. Reid is a former Republican Utah state senator.

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