In this National Park gateway, Trump's cuts, tariff threats inject uncertainty

MOAB, Utah ‒ In a normal year, the streets of this picturesque desert town would be filled with SUVs loaded with camping gear, tall-tired Jeeps, mountain bikes – and Canadians.

This is not a normal year.

"I know lots of people who come fairly regularly. And they're not coming this year," said Stephen Krause, 51, a Canadian tourist from Alberta after parking his Lexus SUV at the grocery store.

All along Main Street, the story is the same: Businesses are reporting a significant drop in Canadian tourists angered by President Donald Trump's on-again, off-again tariff plans and his talk of making Canada the 51st state. And potential American visitors are also canceling or worrying about the impact of federal job cuts on nearby Arches and Canyonlands national parks, which draw 3.6 million visitors annually.

Trump's initial layoffs, with the promise of dramatically more to come, have shaken some members of this outdoorsy community, where about 6,300 federal employees are spread across the 3rd Congressional District. Advocates worry about damage to National Parks, dirty restrooms and traffic jams around popular attractions, including trails like Hell's Revenge, the Whole Enchilada or Metal Masher.

"There's been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth," said Lorenzo McGregor, 45, the co-owner of Tex's Riverways, which boats canoers and backpackers down the Colorado River into otherwise inaccessible parts of Canyonlands.

McGregor said he's been getting a steady stream of cancellations from Canadian visitors citing Trump's cuts or threatened tariffs, estimating about $10,000 in losses already. He hopes the impact on tourism will be short-lived but is making plans to adapt operations if necessary.

But others are heartened by the cuts, which they hope will lighten the federal government's sometimes-heavy local footprint.

They want the job cuts to be the first step in rolling back some federal oversight of public lands, private development and energy development, especially when it comes to where people can drive their off-road vehicles, a longtime sore spot.

Moab got its big start during the uranium boom following World War II, when hundreds of Geiger-counter-wielding prospectors built roads and dug mines to extract the element U92, which by law they could sell only to the federal government. Many of those roads are now off-road trails.

Where some public lands advocates cheer when Democratic presidents have named new national monuments and assigned federal workers to manage them, some Utah conservatives remain angry at those moves, hearkening back to the Sagebrush Rebellion invoked by President Ronald Reagan, among others.

Like many business owners who deal with federal officials in the area, McGregor said he'd love to see the government reduce what he considers to be unnecessary paperwork and oversight. He's just not sure Trump's cuts are the most effective approach.

As an example, he said his newly signed Park Service concessionaire permit requires him to log onto a government website to buy a $6 permit every time he launches a boat to ferry people into Canyonlands ‒ even though the overall permit already governs how often he can launch boats.

"I 100% understand the perspective that the government needs to be more responsive," McGregor said. "I just don't know if a Roman salute and a sledgehammer is the right way to go about it."

Looking forward to the feds doing 'less with less'

As in many western states, Utah has long chafed under the thumb of the federal government, which owns about 68% of the state's land. State lawmakers have periodically floated proposals to force the federal government to turn some of that land over to them or sell it off for development.

Portions of that include internationally known parks like Arches, Zion and Bryce Canyon, but also vast tracts of U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land, where development and oil extraction are largely banned. The Biden administration sought to further limit development on those lands, angering many locals who believe their economy would be better if they could diversify.

Although the 10,000 residents of Moab's Grand County supported Kamala Harris over Trump in the presidential election, Trump won Utah as whole with nearly 60% of the vote, and many elected officials support his efforts to shrink the federal bureaucracy.

Rep. Celeste Maloy, a Republican who represents the western half of Utah, said that while people often complain about the federal government having to do more work with fewer people, "I'd like to see agencies do less with less."

The Blue Ribbon Coalition, a group of outdoor-oriented businesses and advocates, has long battled with the federal government over access to public lands. The coalition has repeatedly sued to force agencies like the BLM over management plans that restrict vehicular access in favor of preserving wilderness.

Executive director Ben Burr said he's got lots of friends working for federal agencies, and doesn't want to see people lose their jobs. But the coalition also wants a dramatic shift in land managers' "culture of no," Burr said.

"The bottom line is we want these agencies run by great people taking care of the resources we all like to go out and enjoy," he said. "Too often, they see their job prioritizing dirt over everything else. And so you're prioritizing dirt over the American people. They have a big course correction they need to make."

Dependent on seasonal tourism

About 40,000 federal workers are stationed in Utah, and Trump's cuts have trimmed about 10,000 of those jobs so far, according to some estimates. Before the cuts, there were about 150 permanent and seasonal employees at Arches and Canyonlands, along with regional supervisors for the Park Service, Forest Service and BLM.

The average federal employee's salary is about $106,000, according to the Office of Personnel Management and they represent a consistent inflow of income to a county heavily reliant on seasonal tourism.

"It's a big story in our town because we're so dependent on federal lands," said Ashley Korenblat, the president of the Moab Chamber of Commerce.

Korenblat is also a recreation consultant who co-owns Western Spirit Cycling Adventures. She said the company has already lost at least one $10,000 booking from longtime Canadian customers angry about Trump's tariffs and threats, and she worries more cancellations are coming. And she said the permit coordinator the company works with in Yellowstone National Park got fired or laid off in one of Trump's recent cuts.

For outfitters, restaurateurs and hoteliers still climbing out of the COVID-19 pandemic's impacts, the cuts have generated significant uncertainty. It's not just that their friends and neighbors have lost jobs but that tourists who are now making summer vacation plans might not come if they think the parks won't be well run.

"I think you're going to see the parks without enough services. It's not going to be good," said Kursat Gokalp, 43, who has owned the Nuclear Bean Coffee Co. food truck since 2018. "If there's no enforcement, no rangers, places might get trashed … (and) if it's trashed, people won't come."

After announcing the fulltime Park Service staffing cuts, Trump said he wants to hire about 7,700 seasonal workers this summer, significantly more than the normal number of about 6,300 seasonals hired to help clean toilets, manage campgrounds, direct traffic and collect entrance fees. Despite that promise, the uncertainty lingers.

"We were really hoping things would turn around this year," said Steven Allred, 38, the co-owner of 4x4 rental service Moab Tour Company. "People might assume the national parks will be shut down. That's my biggest concern: By far the majority of people who come to this town do something that’s connected to the national parks."

Allred said in the summer, it would be common to hear French, German and Spanish being spoken inside one of the town's two grocery stores, but those international tourists have been dropping for the past several years, a combination of pandemic travel restrictions and a change of advertising focus by town leaders. He worries what the rest of 2025 will look like for his business.

"I'm very hopeful that people won’t let this short-term affect them," he said. "There needs to be a little more foresight before you blanket fire people."

Tax dollars well spent

Inside Arches, which is about five times the size of Manhattan island, there's little obvious sign of Trump's cuts. Later this year the park will shift to a Disneyland-style timed entry system, but for now there's just a single ranger staffing the entrance gate and the visitor center opens at 9 a.m daily. Some of the toilets are closed off with orange cones or other barriers, but there's no sign explaining why.

During two days of driving and hiking around the park, a USA TODAY reporter never saw a uniformed ranger or law enforcement officer on patrol, although workers cleaned the toilets each morning and graded a dirt road. The 51-spot Devil's Garden campground is essentially fully booked for the season already, managed by contractors who live on site.

Each day, even during the current slow season, hundreds of visitors entered the park to marvel at the eroded sandstone features that include Balanced Rock, the Windows and the most iconic site, the 46-foot high Delicate Arch, reached via a 1.5-mile hike across bare rock and sand.

Phoenix tourists Jeannine Acantilado, 62, and Dr. Steven Wolinsky, 61, stopped at the park with their son on a drive back from Colorado. The couple say they have visited many national parks, and while they generally support the idea of trimming the size of government, they worry about park safety and maintenance because of cuts.

Wolinsky, making his first visit to Arches, said he's consistently impressed with how well run the National Park system is, given how little it costs, and fondly remembers a recent visit to Zion National Park, farther west in Utah.

"I thought as a taxpaying American I could get into the park for $35 and get shuttled around – that’s a great value," said Wolinsky, a cardiologist. "I felt like my tax dollars were well spent."