Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers (UAW), during a campaign event with former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, in Flint, Mich., on Friday, Oct. 4, 2024.
Bloomberg/Via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Bloomberg/Via Getty Images
President Trump’s tariff announcements have disappointed a number of his previous supporters on Wall Street. The abruptness and severity of the tariffs introduced last Wednesday caused various global manufacturers to halt shipments to the U.S., increasing the likelihood of a recession, as noted by economists.
However, an earlier set of tariffs continues to receive support from Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers.
Fain backed Democrat Kamala Harris with a passionate convention speech in 2024 and opposes many of Trump’s positions regarding union labor, yet he believes the president has made a decisive move that both parties have avoided for years.
Fain represents nearly one million current and retired workers across various sectors, with an estimated few hundred thousand currently employed in the automobile industry. This is a significant drop from the 1.5 million autoworkers that the UAW represented in the mid-20th century.
Below are key points from an NPR interview with an unorthodox supporter of the tariffs. Some responses have been slightly modified for succinctness and clarity.
He has mixed feelings about all tariffs but supports those affecting his sector.
Fain described last Wednesday’s tariff announcement as “reckless,” yet he firmly endorses an earlier set of tariffs on the U.S. auto industry. These tariffs both assist and hinder U.S. auto manufacturers, who produce extensively in Canada and Mexico. The components of cars often cross borders multiple times throughout assembly. GM has already indicated it will relocate some production back to Indiana, while Stellantis announced layoffs.
For Fain, these tariffs rectify a long-standing injustice. “For over the last 30 years, especially since the inception of [the North American Free Trade Agreement] around 1993-94, we have observed our country’s manufacturing base vanish,” he stated.
He is indifferent to the decline in the stock market.
“You know, half of Americans don’t even hold stock,” he remarked. (Some estimates suggest that well over half of Americans own some stock.)
“Sixty percent of Americans lack any retirement savings,” he noted. “So when I hear all this lamenting about the stock market, this solely concerns Wall Street. These are individuals who are already affluent, and at the end of the day, most working-class citizens are just trying to get by right now. It’s maddening that our means of living have been taken from us for years and nobody has seemed to care.”
He acknowledges that tariffs might result in higher prices.
Most economists assert that the burden of import taxes is ultimately transferred to consumers. When asked if this was beneficial for the working class, Fain replied, “Well, no, but that’s a choice. This underscores our system’s flaws. The wealthy elite and corporate entities always secure their profits, reap their rewards, and shift anything adverse onto consumers.”
Nonetheless, Fain recognized that he views tariffs as a means to avert exceptionally low prices spurred by cheap labor: “The purpose of tariffs is to terminate the race to the bottom where we are exploiting individuals.”
Despite the abruptness of Trump’s decision, he believes the auto industry can adapt.
Fain was calling from Warren, Mich., where Stellantis recently moved some of its production to Mexico. “Two thousand workers were laid off. They could be back to work within a month assembling Ram trucks again,” he added.
He dismisses concerns that the disruption may not yield positive outcomes.
Fain dismissed Wall Street’s recession forecasts, including that from a JP Morgan economist.
“Where was JPMorgan, and all these other players, when companies were inflating prices and engaging in price gouging over the last three to four years?” he questioned. “Where was their outrage then? As long as the stock market is thriving, that’s their only concern.”
Moreover, he downplayed a notion put forth by many economists: that any factories brought back to the U.S. are likely to be highly automated due to advancements in robotics and expensive labor costs. He argued that these factories would still necessitate “skilled trades jobs which are even better-paying positions. We simply have to train individuals.”
“The sad reality is [the idea that] it’s negative for us to restore manufacturing to this country just because labor is costly. That’s pathetic. I recall someone, one of the former presidents, stating, I pity the businessman who seeks to make a coat so cheaply that the person making the coat will starve in the process. It’s genuinely sad,” Fain stated.
The audio version of this interview was produced by Mansee Khurana and edited by Arezou Rezvani. The digital version was produced and edited for the web by Majd Al-Waheidi.