Washington (AP) – President Donald Trump has again scrambled the organized labor policy and the working class with his planned prices on automotive imports.
The White House is impatiently promoting comments of support for the best chief of the country’s car workers, a previous Trump critic who approved the Democrat Kamala Harris on Asset In 2024. At least a few constantly evolving producing states democrats joined their republican colleagues to applaud the prices that Trump throws as an increase in long-term jobs for automotive production based in the United States. The other Democrats, on the other hand, have afflicted Trump’s policy, warning that a trade war will increase inflation and increase costs for all Americans.
The long -term consequences of the planned prices of 25% of Trump on imported vehicles remain vague, as is the fallout from the additional prices which he announced on products from Canada, Mexico, China and other American trade partners. But the last political tumult highlights the in progress effort of the Republican president to redirect the party’s alliances and the loyalty of voters in a manner which explains not only his return in 2024, but could be reflected in the middle of 2026 and beyond.
By praising the Trump administration’s pricing plan, the President of UNITED car workers Shawn Fain said the union’s independence.
“The UAW and the working class in general do not care about parties of the parties,” said Fain.
Fain, who announced Harris UAW approval Above Trump, last year, declaring that Trump was “all the speech” on labor problems, praised his administration this week “for having ended the disaster of free liber which has devastated workers’ communities for decades”.
This turnaround was not lost for the press secretary of the White House, Karoline Leavitt, who said Thursday that the new prices of the president “are a big problem for industry workers”.
Fain, she noted: “was not the biggest fan of the president of the campaign campaign.”
This may have underestimated criticism from the union leader.
“When Donald Trump was in power,” said Fain, “he did nothing to help the American car worker.”
Michigan representative Debbie Dingell, a democrat who represents thousands of UAW members in a key presidential swing state, was also a Trump critic but called the “good first step of the price”. However, she noted that legislators are looking for clarification on many details on Trump’s plans.
The organized work, strongly concentrated in the northeast states and the Great Lakes region, has historically aligned itself with democrats, in particular by supporting more protectionist policies such as prices. The Republicans, for their part, have pressure for decades to liberalize international trade.
Democratic president Bill Clinton upset these alliances for the first time when he signed the North American free trade agreement in 1993, breaking with unions that approved it in 1992. The effects, as well as decades of so-called “cultural wars”, coincided with the fact that the voters of the working class are more in place. Trump – Who Renegotiation of Alena during her first mandate But did not revise its essential provisions of free trade – made a particularly strong game for union support and the support of non -unionized voters who historically inclined more democratic.
In 2024, Harris collected support of more than half of the voters who were members of the union or who were in a household with a member of the union, according to the vote. But 44% supported Trump, an increase in the 42% he obtained four years earlier. During this election, Challenger Joe Biden, Democrat, attracted 56% of voters in union households.
With Trump back to power, the Republicans are now full -fledged protectionists who echo union leaders like Fain.
“Hopefully this is reflected in fair treatment and more jobs in America,” said the head of the majority of the room, Steve Scalie, R-Louisiana. Stressing a recent announcement by Hyundai that she was building a factory in Louisiana, Scalie said that Trump’s plans “are already paying”.
Most Democratic leaders are not convinced. Some emphasize that prices increase costs which are often transmitted to consumers in the form of higher prices. Even the car manufacturers who assemble their cars in the United States greatly depend on the parts made elsewhere.
Other Democrats underline the uncertainty that Trump has created for American trade partners and in the business world – by threatening prices, announcing some, hold And leave details in the limbo.
“If you want to provide more manufacturing jobs here in our nation, how can you plan and make all these plans and commitments when these prices could be shot tomorrow or next week?” Senator John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania.
Fetterman was a frank critic of his party’s struggle to reach the voters of the working class, and he said that he remained philosophically with Trump on “protection of some of our national industries”. But Fetterman said that Trump’s dispersed approach has been “struck our allies in the mouth”.
The Senate Democrats next week will force a vote on a resolution that would cancel the urgency that Trump used to threaten the prices in Canada.
Senator Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, said that Trump’s objective is not to stimulate American production but to generate short-term tariff income to help pay tax reduction plans, which are tilted towards the rich Americans.
However, Kaine recognized that the Democrats have “real divisions on trade” and he worked in Corral Support for the resolution of steel and machinist unions in a nod to complicated politics. “Having work support to drop the prices should not be taken for granted – it’s a bit unusual,” said Kaine.
Fain, for his part, said in its approval of Trump automotive prices that trade is only aspect of the policy that affects workers. He also called for “the guarantee of union rights for car workers everywhere with a solid national labor relations council, a decent retirement with protected social security benefits, health care for all workers, including through Medicare and Medicaid, and dignity on and out of work”.
All of these points could disagree with Trump and the Republicans. Trump remains in a legal struggle for his efforts to drawn a democrat at the NLRB to accelerate the inclination of the board of directors on the right and far from supporting organizational rights. He also did not approve the Pro actPending legislation that would strengthen workers’ organizational rights.
However, in a recent interview with the Associated Press, Fain has issued a desecration warning for the Democrats, in particular the party party to rely on rich donors enriched by what he called “a race down” since the promulgation of Alena.
“The reason why the president of Donald Trump right now is that we have too many democrats who cannot decide who f – they want to represent,” said Fain, “and that’s a problem.” – Barrow reported in Atlanta. The editors of the Associated Press Kevin Freking and Amelia Thomson-Deveaux in Washington and Steve Peoples of New York contributed the reports.