Playing poker with our lives Michigan's autoworkers fear the impact of Trump's big gamble

Michigan's autoworkers fear the impact of Trump's big gamble

- Tom Perkins

The General Motors Flint Assembly plant is a hulking symbol of American auto industry might, a 46-hectare (115 acre) factory stretching as far as the eye can see down Van Slyke Road, and it hums: three shifts almost daily crank out the Silverado truck, the automaker's most popular product.

The plant weathered decades of industrial disinvestment in Flint, a blue-collar city of about 80,000 in mid-Michigan, the nation's auto capital. Flint Assembly remains an economic cornerstone of a Rust belt region filled with working-class swing voters who helped propel Donald Trump to his second term.

The president did well here in part because he promised an industrial revival that would regenerate towns like Flint. On the campaign trail he promised tariffs would achieve this goal. This week the tariff war kicked into a higher gear. The reviews are mixed.

Autoworkers, small business owners and residents here say tariffs could help Flint, but many aren't comforted by what they characterized as Trump's haphazard approach, higher prices on everyday goods, and the prospect of middle-income folks becoming "collateral damage".

"Trump is playing poker, but he's playing poker with people's lives at this point," said Chad Fabbro, financial secretary of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 538 in Flint. Even the union is a house divided. Its president, Shawn Fain, supports tariffs, but Fabbro said many of the 5,000-strong rank and file at Flint Assembly see them as "bullshit".

Onshoring industry is a good idea, if well planned, Fabbro added, but an abrupt, full-scale tariff war is "not good for anyone because middle America is going to suffer".

Before Trump partly pulled back last Wednesday, his unprecedented trade war enacted at least 10% tariffs on nearly every country in the world last week, while hitting China, Taiwan and Vietnam with much higher rates. The dispute with China has escalated.