UAW Shifts Gears: Supporting Trump's Tariff Policies

How quickly things change.

In the 2024 Presidential campaign, the United Auto Workers officially endorsed Kamala Harris and UAW President Shawn Fain was one of the Democrats’ most strident supporters and one of Donald Trump’s most strident attackers.

Remember Fain’s “Trump is a Scab” t-shirt at  the Democratic Party convention?

The UAW has now been swept up in the gravitational pull of the Trump Revolution, releasing a March 4 statement supporting Donald Trump’s tariffs,

“We are glad to see an American president take aggressive action on ending the free trade disaster that has dropped like a bomb on the working class…The UAW is in active negotiations with the Trump Administration about their plans to end the free trade disaster. We look forward to working with the White House to shape the auto tariffs in April to benefit the working class.”

UAW Statement on New Tariff Action - UAW | United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America

For 40 years, we’ve seen the devastating effects of so-called “free trade” on the working class. Corporations have been driving a non-stop race to the bottom by killing good blue-collar jobs in America to go exploit some poor worker in another country by paying poverty wages. Tariffs are a powerful tool in the toolbox for […]

UAW | United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of AmericaJustin Mayhugh

The statement went even further in defending Trump’s policies, by taking on the devastating consequences of free trade, and also taking on the idea that tariffs will disrupt the economy (a favorite talking point of the media and the Democrats).

For 40 years, we’ve seen the devastating effects of so-called “free trade” on the working class. Corporations have been driving a non-stop race to the bottom by killing good blue-collar jobs in America  to go exploit some poor worker in another country by paying poverty wages….

There’s been a lot of talk of these tariffs “disrupting” the economy. But if corporate America chooses to price-gouge the American consumer or attack the American worker because they don’t want to pay their fair share, corporate America bears the blame for that decision…

We want to see corporate America, from the auto industry and beyond, recommit to the working class that makes the products and generates the profits that keep this country running.

The UAW is catching up with the rank and file. 

President Trump acknowledged this shift in his March 7 Oval Office press conference, remarking that the UAW and Sean Fain are now saying that he is absolutely right on tariffs.

Trump also pointed out how much support he had from rank and file auto workers in 2024, despite the UAW not endorsing him, and how that support was decisive in his Michigan victory.

Trump added that now,

“You're going to have so many Auto jobs, you're not going to believe what's going to happen, we're going to load up Michigan.” 

This new UAW orientation toward Trump’s tariff policy is another step in the direction of a political realignment in the country, one which could fulfill the 2024 Republican Party Platform’s pledge to return the Republican Party “to its roots as the party of industry, manufacturing, infrastructure and workers.”