Why the quick embrace

The UAW wholeheartedly welcomed the announcement by Trump of a new trade policy. The union apparently believes Trump’s new tariff regime will re-shore auto production to the U.S., increase demand for U.S. made cars and trucks, and bring income and job security to autoworkers.

There is little doubt that the old neoliberal trade regime weakened the union and its bargaining power as jobs were off-shored, plants closed, and wages and benefits slashed. Auto centers, like Detroit, turned into a pale imitations of their former selves.

But the early reaction to Trump’s worldwide tariff war provides little evidence that it will bring back the union’s glory days, stretching from the end of World War II to the onset of stagflation in the early 70s.In fact, if the new tariff regime slows economic growth in the U.S. and worldwide, as many predict it will, autoworkers and U.S. workers generally could find themselves worse off than they are now.

Meanwhile, the union’s quick embrace of Trump’s tariff policies comes at the same time that the Trump administration, arguably fascistic, is increasingly meeting popular resistance to its anti people and undemocratic practices.

All of which raises a number of questions — why was the union so quick to find common ground with Trump? Why not wait to see how Trump’s tariff regime plays out? Why not join with others and make the mobilization of the union’s membership for this weekend’s demonstrations the immediate priority?

Someone closer to the union will have to answer these questions.