President Donald Trump's tariffs on Canada and Mexico "aren't the end solution" to fixing the American economy, but "they are a huge factor in fixing this problem,' United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain said Sunday.
"Tariffs are an attempt to stop the bleeding from the hemorrhaging of jobs in America for the last 33 years," Fain said in an interview on ABC News' "This Week." "We're in a crisis mode in this country."
He added that the United States has lost "millions of jobs" since the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect in 1994.
"There is no single issue in this country that has affected our economy and working class people and their jobs than NAFTA, the USMCA, and our trade laws," said Fain, referring to the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement. "We're in a triage situation."
He pointed out that there are more than 2,000 people laid off at the Warren Truck Assembly Plant in Michigan after its owner, Stellantis, moved production to Mexico.
"[They] could move those trucks right back here to Warren, Michigan," said Fain.
However, he refused to refer to the Mexican workers as the enemy of the U.S. economy.
"Our neighbors to the south — Mexican workers — aren't the enemy," Fain said. "They're being exploited, and it's because of corporate greed, and that's what's got to stop," he said. "The United States is the market everyone wants to sell in and we should have reciprocal trade laws where people have the same standard of living."
Last week, the Trump administration said it would enact tariffs of 25% on auto-related materials from Canada and Mexico. But after talks between Trump and executives from Stellantis, General Motors, and Ford, the president announced a one-month delay, with the tariffs to take effect in April.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt commented that Trump notified the companies to "start investing, start moving, shift production here."
The UAW has praised the tariffs, saying last week that they are a "powerful tool in the toolbox for undoing the injustice of anti-worker trade deals," the union said in a statement posted to its website on Tuesday. "We are glad to see an American president take aggressive action on ending the free trade disaster that has dropped like a bomb on the working class."
The union also said that higher prices should be blamed on corporate America, not the tariffs.
"If corporate America chooses to price-gouge the American consumer or attack the American worker because they don't want to pay their fair share, corporate America bears the blame for that decision," the union said.
The UAW endorsed Democrat nominee Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, and Fain was once quoted as describing Trump as a "scab."
But the union's stance has softened toward Trump since he was elected and last week said it is in active negotiations with the administration about its plans to "end the free-trade disaster."
Fain has been critical of other aspects of the administration, however, particularly the influence of Elon Musk, reports ABC News.
Last week, at a "fighting oligarchy" event in Warren, he pushed back on Musk's stance on Social Security, telling the crowd that "the only Ponzi scheme we've seen in the last 40 years is the rich getting richer while the working class and everyone else gets left behind."
But Sunday, Fain told ABC that the election is over and Trump is the president.
"We want to get to work to fix the problems that are wrong with this country, with our economy," he said. "The American people expect that. They expect leaders to stand up and lead. They don't expect us to sit back."