Trump’s Tirades To Michigan: Tariffs, Tragedy, And Teamsters

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When former President Donald J. Trump appeared before Michigan workers earlier this week for a campaign town hall, he responded in typical meandering fashion to questions about the future of the US auto industry.

He offered tangential thoughts about tariffs boosting the labor force. “We’re going to charge them – I’m telling you right now – I’m putting a 200% tariff on, which means they are unsellable in the United States.”

Fox News translated those hard-to-follow comments for its readers, explaining that when Trump said, “I took in $467 billion from China, nobody else took in anything,” he meant that Mexico is the largest export market for US automotive parts and the fourth-largest producer of automotive parts worldwide. The 200% tariff would be tagged on vehicles manufactured in Mexico by Chinese firms. Fox News added that multiple Latin American business news outlets reported this year that Mexico’s share of the US auto parts imports market increased from 38% in 2017 to 42.5% in 2023.

Trump emphasized that “tariffs are the greatest thing ever invented” and that the most recent assassination attempt on his life was probably sponsored by foreign nations upset with his trade proposals. Conflating the two topics, he analyzed, “We have to be brave otherwise we’re not going to have a country left.” The crowd boo’d on cue after Trump voiced his appreciation to President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for their calls after the assassination suspect’s apprehension.

Trump eventually wandered back to the question about automotive jobs, threatening that, if he were to lose his bid for the US Presidency in November, the result would be a “tragedy” in which a type of political devastation would follow with “zero car jobs, manufacturing jobs.”

Michigan’s workers rallied around Trump, hoping to hear policies and platforms that would enhance their lives and livelihoods in this fifth Michigan visit in a month. How did Trump respond?

As is his wont, Trump rambled and dissembled to the critical battleground state voters. The Republican candidate for US President called Michigan an “afterthought in cars,” even though General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis compete for the top-selling global car brands in the world.

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Trump answered three pre-selected crowd questions and two moderator questions during the hour+ Flint (“vehicle city”) campaign stop. “I give these long, sometimes very complex sentences and paragraphs, but they all come together,” he rationalized. “That’s not rambling; that’s genius, when you can connect the dots.”

In an unusual persuasive appeal to “connect the dots,” Trump called out his audience. “What the hell are all you people showing up for if I ramble?”

When a Ford employee expressed concerns about threats to manufacturing jobs, Trump cited nuclear war, climate change, and China’s role in the Covid pandemic. “You’re not going to care so much about making cars” once nuclear missiles fly, Trump accused the crowd. He went on to confuse Afghanistan’s Bagram Air Base with the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska as he explained his position on fossil fuels.

While Michigan continues to be the hub of US auto manufacturing, with 161,600 vehicle and parts manufacturing jobs, Trump continued his pattern of concerns that the transition to electric vehicles would be the demise of Michigan jobs. “If I don’t win, you will have no auto industry within two to three years,” Trump anticipated. He argued, “China is going to take over all of your business because of the electric car.”

Michigan vehicle manufacturing jobs dipped slightly under Trump, including before the Covid-19 pandemic, but have rebounded slightly under President Joe Biden, increasing from 41,500 to 46,700 jobs. Electric vehicles do require fewer parts and less assembly due to their efficiency, and job loss has been a significant concern for autoworkers and the unions that represent them.

Ironically, this week’s Michigan campaign stop for Trump was located only 40 miles or so from General Motors’ Orion Assembly plant, which is GM’s first traditional assembly plant converted to EV production.

In August, ahead of one of the Trump Michigan campaign stops, Lansing Mayor Andy Schor (D) noted that federal spending is going to make “a real difference in our local economy.”

Local Teamsters Break Away & Endorse Harris-Walz

When the International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced Wednesday it declined to endorse either Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Trump in the 2024 White House race, Trump was ebullient. “It’s a great honor. They’re not going to endorse the Democrats. That’s a big thing,” Trump told reporters shortly after the Teamsters’ announcement.

The union’s national headquarters had released internal survey results earlier in the day that showed close to 60% of its members backed Trump. It was the first time in nearly three decades that such an endorsement for the Democrats’ pursuit of the executive office had been denied.

Trump’s joy was short-lived, however, as it only took a few minutes for local Teamsters around the country to break away from Teamsters President Sean O’Brien’s decision to withhold its endorsement. While O’Brien had claimed that “neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union,” a surge of local and regional Teamsters union branches in battleground states rushed to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for US President, as reported by the Washington Post.

Teamsters regional councils — representing hundreds of thousands of members and retirees — in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, and western Pennsylvania — rallied around the Democratic ticket.

The council, which represents 35,000 Teamsters across Western Pennsylvania, endorsed the Harris–Walz ticket. Carl Bailey, the joint council’s board president, praised Harris and President Joe Biden for helping save the pensions of Teamsters, including those of local members, as part of federal aid during the pandemic. “We will never forget that,” Bailey told TribLive.

Another such local was Teamsters Joint Councils 7 and 42, a combination of 39 local unions representing 300,000 members in California, Nevada, Hawai’i, and Guam. They described their decision to endorse Harris and Walz to be the next President and Vice President.

“Winning fair wages, bargaining quality affordable healthcare, securing strong pensions, protecting good jobs, and growing the middle class through organizing, is at the heart of what we do as Teamsters. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz have demonstrated a commitment to standing with working people through action, such as supporting the Protect the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, and in the state of Minnesota, Governor Walz signed a bill that would ban forced captive audience meetings. Under a Harris-Walz administration we are confident that we will continue to have proworker appointees to the National Labor Relations Board and the Supreme Court, which directly impacts our ability to organize and win contract fights that benefit all workers.”

The Teamsters are known as the champion of freight drivers and warehouse workers, but they have organized workers in many other occupations, both professional and non-professional, private sector and public sector.