“Internationalism has to be Anti-Imperialist: A Dialogue with Labor Notes on the UAW’s Support for Trump’s Tariffs”
by John Wilson
The critically important issue of Trump's tariffs is the subject of an insightful article in the April 13th issue of Left Voice by James Dennis Hoff and Marcus Nok. Their article critiques a piece in Labor Notes, by a General Motors factory worker and Democratic Socialists of America member, Sean Crawford.
On April 7, Bea Bruske, president of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) denounced UAW president Shawn Fain's support of US tariffs and urged a wide ranging coordinated emergency response. However, as Trump’s 35% tariffs come into effect on August 1, the CLC now calls for "protective" Canadian tariffs, falling in line with Carney's nationalist rhetoric. Carney’s 15% cuts for most federal workers and tax cuts for the rich basically mirror Trump’s budget plans.
On April 2, Labor Notes weighed in on the debate over Shawn Fain's support of Trump's tariffs.
Crawford criticizes Fain's total support for Trump's trade policies saying that they're unlikely to increase US auto production. He instead appeals for more cross-border solidarity. He advocates a more "focused" use of tariffs to penalize corporations that "violate workers' rights" but fails to specify how these can be achieved.
Left Voice writers responded:
"Although Crawford's article offers an argument for why Trump's trade policies won't work, it surprisingly offers no criticism of his larger anti-immigrant, anti-student, and anti-trans agenda...
“It also says nothing about Trump's further weaponization of the National Labor Relations Board, the layoffs of hundreds of thousands of federal workers, or the massive tax cuts for the rich that are on the table. All of these are attacks on the working class, and agreeing to negotiate with someone who holds you in such contempt, as Fain said he would, is not only a fool's errand, it provides cover for these attacks and promotes the illusion that Trump cares about working people…
"But this failure to denounce Trump's larger agenda is also a betrayal of the global working class...
"Instead of rejecting Trump's tariffs - an attempt to impose US interests upon global markets, the article takes a purely economistic approach, interested only in whether they will "work" and how they will affect auto workers. ... This article also ignores the ways tariffs will be used to fuel the project of US imperialism to force semi-colonial countries like Mexico and Vietnam to revise their trade policies to benefit US capital at the expense of workers in their countries….
"While pointing out these shortcomings is good, any criticism of these tariffs has to include understanding of the global imperialist system under which they are being proposed. Internationalism and class solidarity, after all, demand that workers look beyond their local interests to build the larger power of the working class that benefits us all...
“Despite claiming to offer an alternative to Shawn Fain’s chauvinistic defense of U.S. industry, Sean Crawford and Labor Notes are just putting forward a slightly more progressive vision of business unionism…
"Like Crawford, we agree that Trump's tariffs cannot and will not benefit working people, but that's not because they are poorly designed, it's because they simply are not intended to and never have been...
"As Engels said 180 years ago, 'we have no intention of defending protective tariffs any more than free trade, but rather criticisms of both systems from our own standpoint…
"If activists like Crawford and organizations like Labor Notes are serious about building the power of labor and all working people, they have to stop defending or legitimizing leaders who continue to make deals with the parties of the bosses."
“Real workers’ power requires building organizations that are independent of the Democrats and Republicans but also independent of the bureaucrats who hold back the power and creative organization of the rank and file. We need to build political organizations that break with capitalism and speak out against our enemies, dispelling illusions in incremental improvements made by governments that are enemies of workers worldwide. Only then can we develop the broadest force to fight the bosses and the state, and tackle the larger crisis of capitalism which is dragging our world toward ruin.”