With U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on USMCA goods looming until April and unemployment threatening to rise, it’s time for the North American labour movement to take its internationalism seriously.
American unions are mistaken
While Canadian unions are loudly condemning the tariff threats and suggesting international solutions, many of their U.S. counterparts are supporting the tariffs. Sean O’Brien, president of the U.S. Teamsters, campaigned heavily for Trump and has been silent on the tariff threats that endanger workers who are part of their Canadian counterpart. Meanwhile, the Teamsters Canada union released a statement against the tariffs, reminding us that tariffs are a threat not only to Canadian workers, but to American workers too.
Even more assertively, the United Auto Workers have come out in support of tariffs. They use the language of protectionism and opposition to the free-trade agreements that have ravaged the North American working class, but this is misguided. They stated that they are negotiating with the Trump administration and naively believe they can make the corporations take the brunt of the tariffs—implying that the Republican administration will implement price-controls or somehow go against the interests of American big business.
What will actually happen is that the car-manufacturing supply chain will be disrupted (American car companies get some of their parts from Mexico), lowering the capacity for U.S. auto workers to make cars, and putting their jobs at risk. There is an implication that this will force corporations to bring these jobs back to the U.S. from Mexico, but there is no guarantee that they won’t just pick another country with low-cost labour to move manufacturing to. Instead of getting their parts from Mexico, they will get them from Vietnam. The sweeping character of the tariffs would also make grocery prices higher, making life harder for all American workers. In contrast to the UAW, Unifor (formerly the Canadian Auto Workers Union) has strongly condemned the threats.
The United Steelworkers Union released a statement opposing tariffs against Canada, but supported Trump’s actions against imports from Mexico. This has the same problems as the auto workers unions—there is no guarantee the tariffs will lead corporations to take those jobs back to the U.S.
The incoming crisis
In the United States, these tariffs could lead to many nation-wide issues, such as stock market slumps, inflation, and decreased consumer spending. It could also trigger yet another “once-in-a-lifetime” recession, which Trump refused to comment on—instead telling Americans to get ready for a “little disturbance.” The negative effect the tariffs will have on working-class Americans makes union support for this policy perplexing—to quote Anwar Shaikh, “It is not possible to reduce the fundamentally antagonistic relations of classes to the bland homogeneity of a nation-as-a-whole. Christians are not in a position to cheer for lions so long as they are both booked to play in the Coliseum.”
In Canada, the CIBC predicts that if tariffs go through, Canada will go through three phases of adjustment. First, GDP growth will slow down and inflation will rise. This will lead to a recession (or “something close to one”) in the next phase, which would mean even slower GDP growth and even higher inflation, as well as a rise in unemployment and a decrease in investment. According to the Globe and Mail, the job losses in the auto worker and resource-extraction sectors would suffer the worst. The final phase would be the recovery, which would not reverse the inflation already suffered, meaning that Canadian workers will have less purchasing power—at least those who were not left unemployed by the tariff shock. Mexico, as a target of the tariffs, would undergo similar effects.
The Centre for Canadian Policy Alternatives (CCPA) has advised against the typical laissez-faire neoliberal approaches to solving the trade-war (Poilievre has suggested tax cuts to the rich as a solution). Instead, the CCPA suggests reducing our reliance on the American auto industry by building an all-Canadian electric vehicle industry and a high-speed rail system, building more non-market affordable homes to tackle our housing crisis, and rallying our allies for support.
While these solutions are not exhaustive—nor permanent—they demonstrate the comparatively restricted imagination and problem-solving capacities of those that support the tariffs or suggest neoliberal laissez-faire solutions. The CCPA also suggests we learn from Mexico, who has released a plan to modernize its economy and diversify its trade so as not to rely so heavily on the U.S. and China.
The proper response is solidarity
Supporting the tariffs means opposing the workers—even in the best case scenario for American workers, they will still need to deal with inflation and an economic shock. Some of the Canadian unions support the “Buy Canadian” campaign as a response, but this is also mistaken—it will only encourage corporations to price-gouge Canadian consumers and would not be a substantial solution for the working class.
Instead of grasping at straws for reasons to support policies that would benefit the few or lead to economic shocks, the international labour movement in North America needs to unite against their ruling classes and realize that what benefits the elite is generally not in our best interests. The Mexican, American, and Canadian Labour movements need to forget any nationalist solutions and focus on a workers-first agenda. Employment insurance and income support, protecting factories from closure due to supply-chain disruption, and tackling inflation and the housing crisis are all things we can achieve if we start working together internationally.
Due to the integration of all our economies, our union centrals would hold more power if they collaborated. Instead of facing one another, it would make more sense to face our ruling classes.
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