UAW President Shawn Fain defended his support for President Donald Trump’s auto tariffs during an online speech Thursday.
Auto industry leaders fear the tariffs on Canadian and Mexican made auto parts and vehicles will add thousands to the cost of North American made cars and trucks and disrupt the supply and production chains that employ hundreds of thousands of Michiganders.
Fain said free trade has had a negative effect on U.S. auto workers, who lost out to workers in other countries.
Trump has said his auto tariffs are intended to bring more manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.
Fain said GM, Ford, and Stellantis have excess capacity in their U.S. auto plants. He said shifting more auto production to the U.S. could add tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs.
“We don’t need to trust Donald Trump or any politician to fix it for us,” said Fain, “But I want to be clear about this: The Trump administration is the first administration in my lifetime that’s been willing to do something about this broken free trade system. Tariffs are the first step.”
Fain made it clear the UAW is “not aligning everything we do with the Trump Administration.” He said the union is independent of "any politician or president."
Fain criticized a long list of Trump administration policies, including taking away union rights from federal workers, limiting free speech on college campuses, and revoking visas of those who spoke out against Israel's war in Gaza.
