No, The Trump Administration’s Tariffs are Not Pro Working Class

As the Trump administration proceeds with increased tariffs on Chinese imports climbing as high as 145%, the cost on the working class will be ever more apparent. Tariffs, which function as a tax on the importer, not the exporter, will encourage importing companies to pass the cost onto the working class, raising prices on various goods and contributing to the hardship that many American families already face. However, the question begs if a return to normalcy will solve the problem for the average worker.

Trump’s Tariffs come as an unraveling of the era of Free Trade, which was marked by policies and agreements between nations that sought to eliminate barriers to trade, such as tariffs and other regulatory measures.

These agreements, however, opened the door for industry leaders to export their manufacturing to countries where labor was much cheaper in order to cut costs and increase profit margins. This in turn contributed to the outsourcing of American manufacturing jobs, which not so coincidentally were “traditional bastions of unionization,” further contributing to the decline of pro-worker organizations; Our Trade Unions.

These Free Trade Agreements resulted in the decline of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. and thus the decline in unionized jobs which contributed to growing wage inequality, actively working against the working class.

Now, Trump’s tariffs are no solution either. While the Administration claims that the tariffs are an attempt to bring back manufacturing to America and to support the working class, they have done little to support either.

The imposition of tariffs without first creating a competitive domestic manufacturing base, which the U.S. lacks due to decades of offshoring, will leave the working class with no domestic option to buy from in order to avoid the tariffs. American workers will have no other option but to purchase from price hiked foreign products, weakening their purchasing power.

Additionally, the Administration has done little to promote domestic manufacturing or to engage in the construction of factories and resource extraction industries that would perform competitively with Chinese manufacturing.

Should the return of American manufacturing jobs be the case, the Trump Administration has shown no interest in supporting workers rights or respecting union bargaining. There is no reason to believe that the return of American manufacturing under this administration would guarantee sufficient wages, safe working conditions, reasonable hours, or the numerous other benefits which unions have won for the working class.

The resolution of the administration’s tariff war will only be a victory for corporate elites who will continue to profit off of cheap labor markets in other countries, or in a new, cheap American labor market.