CV NEWS FEED // The American labor union United Auto Workers (UAW) this week praised the Trump administration’s move to place major tariffs on passenger cars and trucks coming into the US market, saying that the change could help thousands of blue collar auto jobs become accessible to working-class communities.
According to Fox Business, the Trump administration plans to impose a 25% tariff on all imported automobiles, starting April 2. Previously, all imported autos were subjected to a 2.5% tariff.
UAW stated in a March 26 press release that the tariffs signal “the beginning of the end” for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a three-country pact between Canada, Mexico, and the United States that brought an end to most tariffs among the countries’ intertraded products, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
UAW President Shawn Fain said in a March 26 statement that the tariffs will spark the end of “the free trade disaster that has devastated working class communities for decades.”
“Ending the race to the bottom in the auto industry starts with fixing our broken trade deals, and the Trump administration has made history with today’s actions,” Fain said.
The “race to the bottom” refers to companies giving lowest wages or terrible working conditions to employees, so as to reduce costs that will help companies be more competitive against each other.
Fain said bringing this practice to an end must also include guaranteeing that autoworkers will have union rights, Social Security benefits, federally funded healthcare, and dignity both in their labor and outside of it.
President Donald Trump said at a press conference March 26 that the tariffs will increase construction of auto plants and boost employment.
“It takes a little while, you’ll have great construction numbers initially, and then ultimately you’re going to have a lot of people making a lot of cars,” Trump said, according to Fox.
According to the UAW March 26 press release, thousands of autoworkers at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis – known as the “Big Three” auto plants – are currently out of the job due to the companies’ executives decision to reallocate jobs to Mexico. Subsequently, the vehicles were being produced using “low-wage, high-exploitation labor abroad,” the UAW release states.
In his March 26 statement, Fain emphasized that the UAW’s praise is not partial to a political party, but to results that will benefit those in the working class.
“The UAW has been clear: we will work with any politician, regardless of party, who is willing to reverse decades of working-class people going backwards in the most profitable times in our nation’s history,” Fain said. “These tariffs are a major step in the right direction for autoworkers and blue-collar communities across the country, and it is now on the automakers, from the Big Three to Volkswagen and beyond, to bring back good union jobs to the U.S.”
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