We Need Solidarity With Chinese Workers — Not Trade Tariffs
Donald Trump’s trade war with China was never about helping American workers. The US labor movement needs to reject trade tariffs and stand up for international solidarity among workers everywhere.
Chinese workers produce desks for export in Nantong, Jiangsu. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)
With inflation on the rise and the Democrats’ dismal polling numbers going into the midterm elections, the Biden administration is considering lifting the tariffs that Donald Trump imposed on China in an effort to bring relief to consumers.
In response to the news, some parts of the union movement have been pressuring Joe Biden to leave the tariffs intact. Axios last week reported that the Labor Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations and Trade Policy submitted a letter to the Office of the US Trade Representative calling for the tariffs to stay in place. This advisory committee is made up of the leaders of most of the largest unions in the country. Clearly, there’s significant support for these tariffs among the leadership of the labor movement. But supporting Trump’s tariffs today is a mistake, just as it was a mistake to support them in 2018.
Two Weaknesses
As Doug Henwood correctly predicted back in 2017, Trump’s tariffs were never going to revive employment in the steel industry. This is because the amount of labor required to produce steel has long been falling. That has for decades been the story in manufacturing in the United States, which has been shedding workers as a share of employment since the end of World War II, long before concerns about foreign competition began in the 1970s.
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