UAW’s Shawn Fain On Trump’s Tariff-pocalypse

One thing I have to say, is that I was taught that Chicago could have had the auto industry, instead they decided that it was better to have a mixed industry economy. These single industry communities are risky propositions. Would we all be driving American cars now if there had been no NAFTA? Not sure. As I recall, the US cars have been enormous and gas guzzling, so people wanted smaller cars to economize. Now, people want electric cars, and I don't know of the US auto industry as going in that direction other than the disliked Teslas. Otherwise we are looking at foreign Ecars.

I agree with Linda. I thought the US Auto industry started going downhill before Nafta, during the global oil crisis. In the early 80s I was in a position to purchase my first new car. I really wanted to buy an American car, but following a lot of research, I ended up buying a Toyota. I owned foreign cars until 2017, when Chevy introduced the Bolt, a long-range electric vehicle that was a budget alternative to Tesla. It has been a great car, but Chevrolet has stopped making it! Ok, let's try to help the US auto industry, but they need to step up to the plate.

People fail to realize that, the U.S. simply doesn't have the grid, nor the local delivery capacities generally, to handle much of an electric car market. We also have a lot of geography that is just too cold for electric cars to be fully practical for part of the year.

There are basic realities that aren't being acknowledged here, that the car manufacturers are having to dealing with.

I agree, the "Free Trade" agreements from the start were not really about world peace, conflict reduction, etc. The U.S. first set one up with the Mariana Islands, for garment manufacturing, receiving tax free status for the investors, from both the US government and the government of the Mariana Islands. The promise to the islands was the development of the local economy, from all the jobs and infrastructure development. Instead, the textile factory owners used contract labour from China. The Chinese workers were housed in guarded barracks, only allowed offsite under Chinese supervision, and nearly all the money earned by the textile workers went back to China, to pay off bribes, and support families in China.

The garments were also all tagged as being made in the USA, when in fact, they not, and also essentially made under near slavery conditions.

I don't favor this tariff war at all, but that doesn't mean the UAW is wrong on all its points either.

The people of the United States need to be shaken into more realistic thinking, and sometimes people just need to feel burned before they understand that fire is hot.

We need more people talking about tariffs in a factual way like this. American workers have been and continue to be screwed over by the corporatocracy with offshoring, H1B visa scams and a lack of tariffs for cheap foreign goods. Both political parties are responsible for this shit. Trump is a scumbag, but he's leveraging the tariff situation in a way the SEEMS like he cares about the working class. Our leadership for the last 20 years has failed to do anything other than serve the rich, so maybe we need to blow it all up and learn some hard lessons - Trump doesn't really care about average Americans.....but neither do most of the Democrats.

I'm sorry but that was one ignorant conversation about reality. Fain sounded like an old geezer wishfully thinking we can go back to the way things were! And his ignorance of who trump really is so damn frustrating to keep hearing. This country is under a mass delusion. We have been lied to since the white man arrived on these shores. Capitalism is killing us and until there is a mass awakening we are toast. Conversations like this are just evidence that we are not anywhere near repairing even the smallest amount of damage.  Glad I didn't have children! I feel sorry for the young people. Climate and nature will take care of things. We are heading for a major correction environmentally,  emotionally and spiritually.  You and I won't be here to see it!  Jobs will be the least of our worries.  Clean air, water and food much more essential at this point.  Your movie was prophesy sadly.

Fain is the classic bourgeois apologist who is lost and in over his head. Remember when the union leadership called Trump a scab during the last election? What happened since these brave labor leaders summoned the courage to represent the working class by calling Trump what he was and still is? You can't have it both ways. There is near unanimous consensus among economists that tariffs are self defeating and have a negative effect on economic growth. Fain has no ideological anchor other than his track record which is a conrtadiction to what he says in defense of the status quo. His defense of tariffs that may temporarily protect the auto industry is indicative of someone unfamiliar with history. The Smoot Hawley Tariff Act, enacted in 1930, was intended to protect American industries but had the opposite effect. Fain's lack, or disregard, of economic theory is an unforgiveable bit of history that he should not be given a pass on by my brothers and sisters in the UAW come election time.