President Donald Trump’s decisive victory has set the stage for an ambitious agenda that I believe will boost our economy and usher in a new era of growth for small businesses, including the hundreds of thousands of Hispanic entrepreneurs who collectively contribute over $90 billion to Florida’s economy.

However, economies are fragile, and businesses need freedom to grow and succeed. As Trump assumes leadership, I am confident he will provide the course correction our nation needs. To achieve this, he must adopt smart, thoughtful policies — particularly regarding tariffs — and ensure businesses have the tools they need to thrive.

It’s obvious we need better trade deals, but it is also crucial to remember that failing to use a thoughtful approach could unintentionally harm important U.S. industries. While recent days have displayed Trump’s use of tariffs as a negotiation tactic, a sudden implementation of broad tariffs could easily result in higher prices. That’s the last thing consumers or business owners in Florida want after four years of mismanagement under the Joe Biden administration.

Floridians experienced the weight of high inflation these last few years and, although it has since dropped, a recent study from Florida Atlantic University shows that high prices are likely to stick around.

However, if Trump is selective in how he applies his tariffs, we can avoid the impacts of a longer-than-necessary economic recovery and bring relief to Florida families and the small businesses they buy from every day. Excluding non-essential industries with low security implications for our trade policy is necessary to ensure our economy does not go into a tailspin.

A good example is the toy industry. The majority of toys in the U.S. are manufactured in and exported from China. Blanket tariffs on China would impact those exports and raise prices on a low-margin category such as toys, meaning American families will see prices rise significantly when they get their receipts in the 2025 holiday season.

But another more problematic outcome is that higher prices on toys could drive families to buy fewer toys or seek out less expensive counterfeits from other online sellers. This could be devastating for small businesses like a family-run toy company or your local toy and game store. Chinese-owned websites like Temu, which sell untested and possibly unsafe knockoffs, would suddenly flood the U.S. market, seizing on newfound demand.

This sort of domino effect is the last thing either consumers or retailers need, and by excluding industries like the toy sector, Trump can both avert safety concerns and avoid breaking his campaign promise to lower prices. Are American children and small businesses really the ones we want to be negatively impacted as we fight for fair economic treatment from our international trade partners?

I have every confidence that Trump will govern sensibly and pragmatically and prioritize the needs of the businesses that move our economy forward. The threat of tariffs can be an effective negotiating tactic. But carefully considering which sectors to exclude to make sure unintended harm is not caused to small, family-owned businesses is core to getting the desired outcome.

By striking the right balance with tariffs, Trump can deliver on his promise to grow the economy without jeopardizing the small businesses that fuel it.

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Julio Fuentes is president and CEO of the Florida State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

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A Disney World firefighter is suing her employer and accusing the governing district of discrimination and creating a workplace that’s “intimidating, hostile, and offensive” in a new federal lawsuit.

Thinh Rappa, an Asian-American woman born in Vietnam, said she faced sex and race discrimination while working for the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District (CFTOD), which handles emergency services at Walt Disney World.

CFTOD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rappa alleged that in 2021, a fellow male firefighter-paramedic was cooking dinner at the station when he told her, “Maybe you should speak English, Thinh,” according to her federal lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court’s Orlando division. “He then slammed a ladle on the countertop and blurted out mockingly, ‘Ying, yang, yong, ping, pang, pong,’” her lawsuit said.

Rappa’s complaint alleged she was once on a 2022 call to a sick child having trouble breathing at an unnamed hotel, but her colleague insisted the boy was OK.

“See I got us out of there early and we get to go home now,” he told her afterward, Rappa said in her lawsuit.

Rappa responded by telling her coworker he acted unprofessionally and he should have brought the airbag from the fire engine to help the child she believed was suffering from Croup.

Her coworker “acted extremely defensively and shoved an ambulatory stretcher into Ms. Rappa so as to pin her between the stretcher and the wall, and yelled, ‘I am the medic here not you!’” Rappa’s lawsuit said. “Ms. Rappa was frightened for her life and attempted to deescalate the situation, responding, ‘I’m so sorry and you’re right. You do what you need to do.’”

Rappa said she complained to human resources and then was moved to a different fire station, a move she called punishment because it was known for high volume calls.

Rappa went on medical leave in May 2022 which she claimed was from post-traumatic stress disorder from working at the district. She returned to work in January 2023 and the lawsuit described Rappa as “presently working at the district.”

“As part of her job duties, Ms. Rappa was tasked with transporting patients to hospitals, rotating from fire trucks to rescue trucks, and assisting rescue trucks with their patients,” the lawsuit said.

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A federal Judge on Tuesday ordered government agencies to restore public access to health-related webpages and datasets that they removed to comply with an executive order by President Donald Trump.

U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington agreed to issue a temporary restraining order requested by the Doctors for America advocacy group. The Judge instructed the government to restore access to several webpages and datasets that the group identified as missing from websites and to identify others that also were taken down “without adequate notice or reasoned explanation.”

On Jan. 20, his first day back in the White House, Trump signed an order for agencies to use the term “sex” and not “gender” in federal policies and documents. In response, the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) Acting Director required agency heads to eliminate any programs and take down any websites that promote “gender ideology.”

Doctors for America, represented by the Public Citizen Litigation Group, sued OPM, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The nonprofit group cited the executive order’s adverse impact on two of its members: a Chicago clinic doctor who would have consulted CDC resources to address a recent chlamydia outbreak in a high school and a Yale School of Medicine doctor who relies on CDC resources about contraceptives and sexually transmitted infections.

The case is among dozens of lawsuits challenging executive orders that Trump, a Republican, issued within hours of his second inauguration.

The scrubbed material includes reports on HIV prevention, a CDC webpage for providing clinicians with guidance on reproductive health care and an FDA study on “sex differences in the clinical evaluation of medical products.”

Removing important information from the CDC and FDA websites is delaying patient care, hampering research and hindering doctors’ ability to communicate with patients, the plaintiffs’ attorneys argued in a court filing.

“The agencies’ actions create a dangerous gap in the scientific data available to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, halt or hamper key health research, and deprive physicians of resources that impact clinical practice,” they wrote.

Government lawyers argued that Doctors for America’s claims fall “well short of clearly showing irreparable harm” to any plaintiffs and are unlikely to succeed on their merits.

“Either failure provides a sufficient basis for denying extraordinary relief,” they wrote.

During a hearing Monday, the judge asked plaintiffs’ attorney Zachary Shelley if the removal of the online material harms the public. Shelley said the doctors’ interests align with their patients.

“There is immense harm to the public,” Shelley said. “There are massive threats to public health.”

The judge concluded that the harm in this case ultimately trickles down to “everyday Americans” seeking doctors’ care.

“If those doctors cannot provide these individuals the care they need (and deserve) within the scheduled and often limited time frame, there is a chance that some individuals will not receive treatment, including for severe, life-threatening conditions,” Bates wrote.

Doctors for America is a not-for-profit group representing more than 27,000 physicians and medical trainees. It was born from an earlier organization that pushed for health reform and supported Barack Obama, a Democrat, when he was running for president.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

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