When Don Calls Shawn
Trump should make the United Auto Workers an offer they can’t refuse
The phone rings at Solidarity House, the United Auto Workers’ headquarters in Detroit. UAW President Shawn Fain picks up from an office last decorated in 1975.
Donald Trump is on the line.
Donald Trump: Shawn, how ya doin’? More importantly, how am I doin’?
Shawn Fain: Mr. President, I’m glad you asked. Truth is, any autoworker who performed as badly as you would be out on his ass.
You’ve driven inflation up and health care coverage down. Your dumb war is sending gas and grocery prices through the roof. Your ICE agents are thugs. And your corruption is just embarrassing – and the UAW is not easily embarrassed in this area, if you know what I mean.
The only thing you’ve done right is to tariff China – and you backed off on that. WTF is wrong with you?
Trump: Well, that’s why I called. I have an idea to run by you. A genius idea. You know that Jenius is my middle name, right? Or was it Jesus?
Fain: I never understand a fuckin’ thing you say.
Trump: I’m heading to China, and I think I can get them to build electric-car plants in the United States. Also, parts plants and battery plants. Lots of plants. The Big Three are getting killed, and you guys depend on them too much. I think I can get Xi to commit to investing a trillion dollars.
Fain: So what? Reagan did that, and we ended up with nonunion transplants all over the Midwest and the South. Japanese, German, Korean, you name it. Organizing them is an absolute bitch. We finally got a contract with VW in Chattanooga. It took us more than ten years and three elections.
Trump: You gonna make any money on that one?
Fain: Maybe in 2060, after I’m dead. Organizing is a good way to go broke.
Trump: Well, the Chinese really want to sell their EVs here, but my tariffs have shut the door. Problem is, the Mexicans are letting them in, and so are the Canadians. And their cars are pretty sweet. You seen ‘em?
Fain: Nope. That douche who runs Ford, Jim Farley, won’t shut up about the Xiaomi SU7 he drives. That thing beats a Ferrari off the line. How he got that car into Detroit, I have no idea.
Why in hell would you let China build cars here?
Trump: I got an affordability problem. If I can’t get gas or grocery prices down, I can at least deliver cheap cars that don’t use gas.
Fain: The only reason those cars are cheap is government subsidies and $7 wages. They can’t do that here.
Trump: Nah. It’s more than that. Smarter designs, efficient battery plants, vertical integration, stuff like that. Plus, they have us over a barrel on rare-earths.
But you know, Shawn, I really like the sound of a trillion dollars in new car plants. It makes me look great. It would create millions of good jobs for men. You know men love me, right? Maybe ten million jobs. Biggest in history. Nobody has ever done anything this big.
Fain: They might promise a trillion dollars. But if they actually invested it – and I doubt they would (pauses to work a mechanical adding machine) that would be like 25 times the total EV investment ever in the US. It would overwhelm all other EV manufacturing. But it would create (more calculating) between a million and a million and a half new direct manufacturing jobs. Plus the parts and battery jobs. Sweet Jesus.
Trump: Yeah. And you guys are down to what, 400,000 members? How many of them actually build cars?
Fain: We have almost a million members. The problem is that most of them are retirees. Only 150,000 of our members build cars. I collect more dues from professors and grad students than from autoworkers. So yeah, a million-plus new autoworkers has me interested — if we can represent them.
Trump: I thought that might get your attention.
Fain: But only if you force the Chinese to sign labor agreements. You know, BYD has an electric bus plant in California that is unionized. It makes money and is growing like a weed. But the fuckin’ sheet metal workers union got there first, so we can’t touch it.
We would want a neutrality agreement and card check elections. Or keep it simple and force them to recognize the UAW on day one. Would they do that?
Trump: If you give them a generous initial contract. Of course, I would need you guys to come out in favor of my plan. See, I got Republicans who hate this deal. But if the China plants — you know I call ‘em China plants, right? — if the China plants are unionized, it will shut the Democrats up. They’ll never complain about unionized car plants.
Fain: So now my job is to help you shut up Democrats? Look, lots of people would hate this deal. The combustion car guys would have a coronary. So would the national security types who worry about China controlling the software in millions of cars. Of course, China already owns Volvo, which has a plant in South Carolina, and it also owns Polestar, which is sold here. So their EVs are already getting around your tariffs.
But if the labor standards are serious and you cover suppliers, we’d take a close look. What kind of endorsement do you need? You can’t run for reelection anyway.
Trump: We’ll see. Maybe neutrality would work. The Teamsters did that – and most of their guys voted for me. You know workers love me, right?
Fain: Yeah, you fooled ‘em twice, Mr. President. I wouldn’t try it a third time.
Trump: So look, if I delivered you a million dues-paying members, what are you guys going to do for me? I got bills to pay too, you know.
Fain: How about this – I’ll get the pension fund to invest in World Liberty Financial, your crypto scam. Since you are now divesting, that’s money from me to you. And the day we enroll our millionth new autoworker at a Chinese-owned transplant, we will rename our headquarters Donald Trump House. And we’ll give you the Walter Reuther prize – we’ll make it a nice, solid gold statue.
Trump: Now you are talking. I’ll have Eric follow up.
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