If elected, Trump should run as far from Harris’s positions as possible by freeing U.S. markets both internally and externally.
Free markets are better for workers than union-backed government planning.
D onald Trump used the national platform of his RNC acceptance speech to call for the immediate firing of Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers Union.
Trump’s declaration caught many off guard, especially because in Michigan a relatively large 14 percent of workers are union members. Specifically, he blamed the UAW for its failure to stop Biden-Harris electric-vehicle policies and for auto-manufacturing plants popping up overseas instead of at home.
Democrats’ top-down industrial planning means billions in handouts to the industry with $100 million earmarked for union shops to ensure a “fair” transition. To the surprise of no one, the UAW endorsed Harris.
She has vowed to ban right-to-work nationwide by supporting the PRO Act, which would also eliminate many contractor and gig jobs. She has opposed every trade agreement she’s come across from the USMCA to the Trans-Pacific Partnership — all positions shared by the UAW.
Earlier, Trump described the decline in auto-manufacturing employment as a bloodbath. The reduction in jobs is confined mostly to Rust Belt states.
Since 1990, auto-manufacturing employment in Michigan is down by 50 percent. In Ohio, it is down by 43 percent. Together that’s 65,000 jobs lost.
But in the Sun Belt, auto-manufacturing employment is increasing. In the same period, auto-manufacturing employment in Alabama went up by 5,250 percent, in Texas by 272 percent, and in Kentucky by 127 percent. That’s 46,000 jobs gained between the three. Nationally, employment in the sector today is basically the same as it was in 1990.
Year after year, domestic migration data show that Americans are relocating to Texas, Florida, the Carolinas, and other Sun Belt states. These states, following Reagan-era prescriptions for deregulation, worker freedoms, and low taxes, have earned a reputation for being pro-family and pro-business.
As president, Trump modernized NAFTA, the U.S.’s most important trade agreement with its largest trade partners Canada and Mexico. Harris was one of only ten senators to vote against the reworked agreement.
Trump negotiated phase-one deals with Japan and China. Japan is America’s largest source of foreign direct investment, and Japanese firms are responsible for many of the auto-manufacturing jobs in the Sun Belt (along with German and South Korean firms). While China has been a major source of unfair trade practices, the phase-one deal set new ground rules for engagement.
When Trump left office, he had more potential trade deals still on the table, the U.K. and India being the two major ones. The Biden-Harris administration threw these trade opportunities out the window and refused to negotiate. It also refused to engage China and follow through on Trump’s agreement, even though its own report found China falling short.
Trump also had set up tariffs to respond to “digital-service taxes” popping up in dozens of countries designed to unfairly tax U.S. tech companies. The Biden-Harris administration instead used the threat of these tariffs to force OECD members to roll digital-service taxes into a Global Minimum Tax. Harris vows to complete this deal and raise the U.S. corporate tax higher than Venezuela’s.
Of course, Trump did not pursue the expansion of trade consistently. His administration’s tariffs, many of which have been kept by the Biden-Harris administration, harmed U.S. manufacturers by raising their input prices, and foreign retaliation harmed U.S. agriculture by closing off export markets.
Trump was applauded by the AFL-CIO when he imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum. The United States was immediately hit with retaliatory tariffs as well as price hikes affecting downstream industries, and ultimately they cost American consumers $650,000 per job “saved.”
The Trump administration had to backtrack and negotiated quotas and exceptions for each trading partner. Talks with Europe were ongoing when Biden took office. Instead of finishing them and providing certainty for manufacturers using steel and aluminum, the Biden-Harris administration kept them as leverage to negotiate a global green steel tax.
Trump is right to cast aspersions on union-led trade policy that limits competition and worker freedoms. He should learn from the mistake of union-backed steel tariffs from his presidency. A Harris administration will spread across the country the same losing policies that have caused Detroit to hollow out.
States that have embraced tax cuts, worker freedom, and free trade have gained manufacturing jobs, foreign direct investment, and highly skilled workers from around the world. Negotiating trade deals at the federal level complements those efforts by opening markets and creating certainty. If elected, Trump should run as far from Harris’s positions as possible by freeing U.S. markets both internally and externally.