AMY GOODMAN: President Donald Trump threatened new and even higher tariffs on China Monday after imposing severe tariffs against nearly all U.S. trading partners and rattling financial markets for days. Trump told reporters Monday during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office, quote, “We have many, many countries that are coming to negotiate deals with us,” unquote.

Democrats like Senator Chris Murphy have called the sweeping tariffs, quote, “a tool to try to compel pledges of loyalty,” unquote. Independent Senator Bernie Sanders has said, quote, “We need a rational and well-thought-out trade policy, not arbitrary actions from the White House,” unquote.

Meanwhile, the tariffs have support from some in the labor movement, including one of the most progressive unions in the country, the United Auto Workers. Trump invited about two dozen autoworkers to his so-called Liberation Day executive order signing last week, when he announced then new tariffs and referred to them many times.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: American steelworkers, autoworkers, farmers and skilled craftsmen, we have a lot of them here with us today. They really suffered gravely. They watched in anguish as foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once-beautiful American dream.

AMY GOODMAN: As the economic impact of Trump’s tariffs played out, United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain outlined possible benefits they may have for the auto industry in an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation before Trump outlined the tariffs.

SHAWN FAIN: Well, all you have to do is look at the history of the United States, especially in auto manufacturing in the last 30 years, with the inception of NAFTA and unfair trade laws. We’ve seen over 90,000 manufacturing facilities leave the United States. We’ve seen, in the Big Three alone in the last 20-plus years, 65 plants have closed. You know, and so, look, tariffs aren’t the total solution. Tariffs are a tool in the toolbox to get these companies to do the right thing. And the intent behind it is to bring jobs back here.

AMY GOODMAN: As workers brace for uncertainty and fallout from Trump’s tariffs, we’ll speak in a minute with a UAW member, an autoworker in Michigan. First, this is an autoworker organizer in Mexico he put us in touch with named Israel Cervantes, who helped found the National Independent Union for Workers in the Automotive Industry. He’s a former General Motors worker. The two organized together in 2019, when Mexican GM workers refused to work overtime while GM workers in the U.S. were on strike. Cervantes explained how Trump’s tariffs will impact Mexican workers.

ISRAEL CERVANTES: [translated] Today, we see this increase in tariffs that is going to have a significant impact on the economy, export, competitiveness and employment, because by adding this tariff, companies will earn a little bit less than they were earning by exporting units — in this case, in the automotive industry. However, it will also be affected by upcoming labor cuts, which will affect the economy of many families in Mexico. It also affects competitiveness, because it will be a lot of competition between workers in the United States and Mexico, and even Canada, with these tariffs, especially since we are part of the USMCA, the free trade agreement. So we see it as a mistake or as an unfair imposition. It will greatly affect both or all three countries.

Regarding Trump’s policies, we are definitely going to see how workers will begin to fight amongst ourselves, thinking that in Mexico we are taking jobs away from people in the United States. So, the most important thing today is that unions currently present in these nations unite in solidarity to improve these policies, eliminate these policies, and unite against this president, against these decisions he’s making that will only negatively affect the three countries.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Mexican autoworker Israel Cervantes, sitting in front of a sign that said “GM.” Trump’s tariffs will impact the vast majority of countries in the world, something like 185 countries and territories.

For more, we go to Warren, Michigan, to Sean Crawford, a UAW Local 160 member who works for General Motors, as well, and is joining us on his break. His new piece for Labor Notes is headlined “Will Trump’s Tariffs Be Good for Auto Workers?”

Sean, welcome to Democracy Now! You begin your piece talking about the man we just heard, the GM autoworker in Mexico, Israel Cervantes. Can you tell us his story and then respond, well, to your own question, the headline of how it will affect workers from the U.S. to Mexico?

SEAN CRAWFORD: Good morning, Amy. Happy to be here talking with you today.

Israel Cervantes is a man I have a deep respect for. He, unprompted, went on basically a small-scale strike by refusing overtime, by refusing to produce General Motors’ most profitable vehicles, the large trucks that I, at the time, was also building at Flint Truck Assembly. And I thought this was just a wonderful gesture of international solidarity, totally unprompted and uncoordinated, just pretty much done out of a spirit of solidarity. And it really flies in the face of, you know, the negative narrative a lot of folks have about Mexican workers taking jobs and not caring about their fellow workers in the United States. And so, I always go back to that for a feeling of inspiration and solidarity.

And as far as will the tariffs benefit workers in the U.S., honestly, it remains to be seen. I think a lot of the evidence so far points to no. And like I mention in the article, there is an old truism in bargaining that you really can only believe something when it’s in writing. And building massive plants in the United States is not in writing. No one has agreed to it yet. No company has broken ground on any new facilities. This is something that has to be done with careful consideration of logistics and investments and the longevity of such a venture. And Trump is a particularly impulsive and erratic president, and I doubt that will be comforting enough for any company to want to break ground on something as large as a new manufacturing facility.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Sean, I wanted to ask you, in terms of — Trump is saying that the tariffs will help American workers by boosting U.S. industry, and especially the auto industry. But the reality is, from the research that I’ve seen, in 1950, at the height of U.S. power, this country was producing 80% of all the automobiles in the world. Recently, in 2023, we were producing only 11% of all the automobiles in the world, whereas China is now producing 30% of all the cars manufactured in the world. And when it comes to electric vehicles, of the 14 million electric vehicles registered worldwide in 2023, 60% of them were registered in China. This is a stunning superiority in Chinese manufacturing that’s been decades in the makings. It’s not just a couple of years. How will these tariffs possibly reverse this trend?

SEAN CRAWFORD: Well, I mean, you have to keep in mind that the heyday of the American auto industry was post-World War II, when a large portion of our competition was basically bombed into the dirt. And barring another world war that results in something like that, heaven forbid, I doubt we’re going to be quite in the same position as we were back in the 1950s.

And there’s also another factor that people often fail to consider, is that the thing that made these manufacturing jobs so wonderful back in the day — and I use “wonderful” kind of lightly, because, honestly, many manufacturing jobs are quite awful, horrible, dehumanizing, dirty, dangerous, and result in major injuries, and I can speak to that from personal experience. But nevertheless, the thing that made these jobs great and the thing that made America great at that time, the heyday of America post-World War II, was a strong labor movement. And in order — you know, even if we do end up bringing back all these shiny new factories, unless these workers are unionized into militant, independent unions that demand the value of their labor that’s being extracted, we’re never going to get back to anything remotely close to that.

And then, on top of that, you know, we have to consider the fact that automation and AI is a huge presence in our economy today. Unless we address that and the effects of automation and the fact that so much more work is being done by robotics now — you know, where it used to take a whole line of workers to do something, now one robot will do the same amount of work — unless we can figure out a way as a society to decide what is done with the products of that automation process and the value that it’s creating, we’re never going to see that level of prosperity again.

So, the discussion really needs to go further away from — you know, I hate hearing — they’re always harping on foreigners, foreigners, foreigners. But what about the capitalists that are exploiting our labor? What about the capitalists that have been screwing us over for all these years? It’s not foreigners, but it’s the people with money that shipped our jobs overseas.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well — 

SEAN CRAWFORD: You know, these workers in Mexico and Canada — go ahead.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, Sean, just to follow up on that, on that issue, part of the problem in terms of producing automobiles here in the United States vis-à-vis in other countries, that gets very little attention, is that many other countries, including Canada, have national health insurance, so the automakers don’t actually have to pay for the health insurance of their own workers, whereas here in the United States with our privatized healthcare system, that falls on the automakers. I’m wondering your thoughts about how the automobile industry could become more competitive, and other manufacturers, if we had national health insurance or some form of government-paid health insurance.

SEAN CRAWFORD: Well, I’m glad you asked me that. That’s, honestly, something I feel very strong about. It’s something that I would like to see not only to make our industry competitive, but just for the economic well-being and happiness of the populace. You know, anyone who lives in the industrial Midwest who’s seen the destruction of our communities over the last 40 years, to go from, per capita, one of the richest places in the world, where workers actually shared in the wealth they created, to one of the most impoverished, where deaths of despair are common, we all know that the employers are not necessarily the most reliable partners. They use us up, and they spit us out when it’s convenient for them.

And so, not having healthcare that’s reliant on your employer would be a game changer, not only for competitiveness with Canada, but also — as if that’s really a goal that I’m looking for, which it’s not; you know, what I want is solidarity with Canada — but it would be a boon for our quality of life, our freedom to be able to choose a job or to start a venture of our own or, you know, really just have freedom and a good quality of life.

AMY GOODMAN: Sean, I know you have to go back to work in a minute, but I wanted to ask you about a point that you make that’s critical. Two quick questions. You write, “My proposal would be to tax or tariff only those vehicles and parts (both domestic and foreign) that are produced in facilities that violate workers’ rights.” If you can talk about that, and then also, where you differ from Shawn Fain, the president of your union, the United Auto Workers?

SEAN CRAWFORD: Well, as far as strategic tariffs, like, I’m not opposed to tariffs, and I’m not opposed to protecting our industry. But what I want to see is a protection of the working class. Right? Because it’s not all about me, me, me. It’s not all about keeping the foreigners out. If you’re an American, like myself — my dad is from Poland. You know, people come from all over the world to become American citizens. I have no problem with my Mexican brothers and sisters or my Canadian brothers and sisters. What I want to do is, if we’re going to penalize companies for producing things the way we don’t want to, how about — you know, try to imagine what it would look like, a truly pro-worker tariff policy. You know, what would empower the working class? What would strengthen the working class? And to me, what would most strengthen the working class is by punishing companies that fight unions, like Elon Musk’s Tesla, for example. If you’re an anti-union company, if you exploit labor, we’re going to penalize you, we’re going to tax you, we’re going to tariff you, until you, you know, actually respect your workers’ rights and their ability to organize.

And as far as where I differ from Shawn Fain — I supported Shawn Fain in the election, and I think he’s done a fantastic job as UAW president. That said, I don’t think Trump’s tariff policies are in the best interests of the working class as a whole. And I would really like to see the tariffs applied much more strategically, in a way that encompasses a mentality of solidarity, brings us closer together and doesn’t divide the working class, because I’ve gotten to know over the years brothers and sisters from Mexico and Canada, and I have a great deal of respect for them. And I want to see us grow together as a working class and as a global labor movement, so we can take on these companies, which are also global, because just having a nationalistic viewpoint has not been working for us and has resulted in a lot of these layoffs that we’ve experienced throughout the years.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Sean Crawford, we want to thank you for using your break to talk to us, as you are in Warren, Michigan, working at the General Motors plant. Sean is UAW Local 160 member in Michigan. His recent piece for Labor Notes, we’ll link to, “Will Trump’s Tariffs Be Good for Auto Workers?”

Next up, the Supreme Court has paused a court-imposed order for the U.S. to bring home a Maryland father who was mistakenly flown — that admission from the Trump administration — to a supermax prison in El Salvador. We’ll speak with the family’s lawyer and go to San Salvador to look more closely at this notorious supermax prison that’s jailing hundreds of immigrants and asylum seekers sent from the United States. Back in 30 seconds.