Editorial | Trump’s Gateway Tunnel shenanigans are a brazen act of self-sabotage

Cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. Shooting oneself in the foot. Tripping over your own feet. Sawing off the tree branch while sitting on it.

Such acts of self-sabotage pale in comparison to the utter lunacy surrounding President Trump’s decision to stymie federal funding for the Gateway Tunnel project, a vital and necessary construction of two new rail tunnels to replace the crumbling infrastructure that Amtrak and New Jersey Transit use every day to crisscross the Hudson River.

Trump has held up funding for 90% of the $16 billion tunnel project designed to replace overused rail tunnels that are more than a century old, damaged by time and weather, that are being held together with patchwork repairs and, likely, a few prayers.

Those tunnels transport 200,000 people into and out of New York City every day. They are a critical cog in the Northeast Corridor that grinds to a halt every time a rail breaks, a signal malfunctions, or a power line snaps. When the Northeast Corridor stops, the city stops — workers can’t get to the office; travelers can’t come and go as they please; commerce itself takes a big hit.

The Trump regime halted funding for Gateway last October amid a government shutdown; it claimed that New York and New Jersey were both in noncompliance with its revised diversity policies. The shutdown ended, but the funding was not restored.

New York and New Jersey sued Trump on Tuesday night, claiming his actions were political retribution. The Gateway Development Corporation also sued Trump for breach of contract, one agreed upon years ago under then-President Joe Biden.

The state and the GDC both hope a federal judge will issue a court order before Friday that would force the federal government to continue funding Gateway beyond that day — lest the entire project come to a stop indefinitely.

Regardless of Trump’s stated reasoning, holding up a $16 billion project to replace two aging rail tunnels feeding the nation’s biggest city and economic engine is an act of sabotage that hurts far more people than Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, state Attorney General Letitia James, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

It hurts every single person who uses trains as a low-cost way to get to and from New York. Those 200,000 daily travelers who cross the Hudson are Democrats, Republicans, independents and third-party voters. They all contribute to the economic lifeblood of this city and this country. When that lifeblood stops flowing, everyone suffers.

The Gateway Tunnel is no vanity project like a new ballroom or a golden arch. It needs to be done. The Trump administration needs to end the sabotage and do the right thing.