The head of the United Automobile Workers Union expressed partial support for the Trump administration’s tariffs on Thursday.
But union president Sean Fein described Trump’s full global tariffs as “reckless.” In a speech to UAW members streamed on YouTube and other social media, he also strongly criticized the administration for firing federal workers and cutting down major government agencies, accusing them of violating the civil rights of students and others.
“We support the use of some tariffs on automobile manufacturing and similar industries. We do not support tariffs on immigration or political games on fentanyl,” Fein said. “We don’t support reckless tariffs in every country at crazy fees.”
The address appeared to aim to distance union leaders from Trump. Over the past few weeks, Fain has praised the White House tariff plans and faced criticism for approaching administrations that often show hostility to organized labor. He frequently and enthusiastically campaigned for former Vice President Kamala Harris last year, a Democratic presidential candidate, and often squealed crowds by calling Trump a “scab.”
“We don’t get everything we do with the Trump administration,” Fein said Thursday. “We are negotiating with the Trump administration.”
Using this address, Fain reiterated his familiar claim that free trade agreements, particularly North American free trade agreements, allow businesses to move US factories and jobs to low-wage countries. He said that around 90,000 US factories have been closed over the past 30 years, with manufacturing cities like Flint, Michigan and Gary, Indiana once thriving.
He accused both Democrats and Republicans of supporting policies that hurt American manufacturing, but Fine said the resulting “pain and anger” led many workers Democrats traditionally drawn to Trump.
“We have to end this free trade disaster, and we don’t care if it’s Republicans or Democrats that do that,” he said.
Fein said General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis have an excess of manufacturing capacity in U.S. plants, and by making the most of them, they can create thousands of car assembly jobs.
He added that he opposed “90% of what the Trump administration is doing,” particularly cutting off the National Institutes of Health, which disrupts research into cancer and other diseases.
“We’ve seen the destruction of the negotiating rights of one million federal workers. We’ve seen the attacks on the National Labor Commission and the illegal dismissal of the board,” he said. “We have seen attacks on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Fain did not mention Elon Musk, who has fired tens of thousands of federal workers and led efforts to cut deeper at agencies, including the Department of Education and Veterans Affairs, as Trump’s adviser. Tesla CEO Musk is strongly opposed to UAW’s efforts to organize Tesla workers in the United States.
Fain said Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University alumnus who was arrested by federal immigration agents last month, was once a student instructor represented by UAW. Grant MinorThe graduate student who was expelled from the university last month is the president of UAW Local 2710, representing Colombian student workers.
