Trump Makes More False Promises to the Working Class

Former President Donald Trump, now officially the nominee from the Republican Party for the 2024 Presidential elections, gave an address to the Republican National Convention on its last night, on July 18. 

His address was riddled with appeals to workers in the US, who are experiencing deep economic despair under the Biden administration (as they were during previous administrations). According to the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, the vast majority (67%) of the over 220 million survey respondents claim to have difficulty paying for usual household expenses within the last seven days—no surprise, as grocery prices have risen nearly 27% since 2020.  

Eugene Puryear, journalist with BreakThrough News and political analyst, said that the Republican appeal to workers is telling of the overall political climate in the country. “We see Biden and the Democratic Party talking about ‘working class, working class, working class,’ Trump, JD Vance, and the Republicans also talking about ‘working class, working class, working class,’ when clearly neither of these parties cares at all about the working class,” he stated. “If these two capitalist parties, who have access to the most extensive polling data, think that they have to appeal to the working class, as a class, in their campaign, even if it’s a fraudulent appeal, it confirms class consciousness is growing in the United States. As can be seen from the growing popularity of trade unions and socialism.”

However, the appeal to working people by the Republicans, is one that recognizes their hardship but does not present solutions that would in any way threaten their class interests. As showcased by Donald Trump at the convention, their approach is to misinform, misrepresent, look for scapegoats, and beat the drums of nationalist chauvinism. 

Made in the USA

“We will not let countries come in, take our jobs, and plunder our nation. They come and do that. They plunder our nation,” Trump said. “The way they will sell their product in America is to build it in America, very simple. Build it in America and only in America… If you go back 20, 25 years they’ve stolen, going to China and Mexico, about 68% of our auto industry. Manufacturing jobs. We’re going to get them all back. We’re going to get them all back, every single one of them.”

Trump promises to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US through tariffs and reversing government regulations.

In swearing his commitment to “bringing manufacturing back to the US”, Trump targeted prominent union leader Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers. Trump essentially blames Fain for having “allowing” auto manufacturing jobs to move to Mexico.

“And right now as we speak, large factories, just started, are being built across the border in Mexico,” said Trump. “So, with all the other things happening at our border, and they’re being built by China to make cars and to sell them into our country, no tax, no anything. The United Auto Workers ought to be ashamed for allowing this to happen and the leader of the United Auto Workers should be fired immediately and every single autoworker, union and nonunion, should be voting for Donald Trump because we’re going to bring back car manufacturing and we’re going to bring it back fast.”

This attack on Fain may be based on his left-leaning political position rather than a supposed “defense of workers”. 

The reason why manufacturing plants have largely moved to the Global South is clearly not because of strong union leaders, but because of corporate greed, and the increase in surplus value that capitalists can extract from cheaper labor in the Global South, ie globalization, a process which has been the driving force in the global economy for the last several decades. A central demand of the successful UAW strike last year in the “Big Three” auto manufacturers, Stellantis, Ford, and General Motors, was in fact to reopen factories that had been closed down due to offshoring and globalization. 

Wealth transfers to the rich

During his speech, Trump proudly touted his legacy of tax cuts for the wealthy and slashing pro-worker regulations. “The biggest tax cuts ever. The biggest regulation cuts ever… We did so much. We do so much,” he said.

Trump has already been president once, and as he proudly articulated, his record proves that his true loyalty lies with the ultra-rich, not with the working class. In 2017, Trump launched tax cuts for the rich that initiated one of the largest transfers of wealth from workers to the wealthy in US history—effectively a wealth transfer of USD 2 trillion. How did he manage this? Trump slashed the corporate tax rate from 36% to 21%, and lowered the income tax rate from those in the highest bracket from 39.6% to 37%, and exempted people with up to USD 12 million from paying any taxes on the inheritance left to loved ones.

He indicated that he would go even further during his second term. “We’ll start paying off debt and start lowering taxes even further. We gave you the largest tax cut. We’ll do it more,” he promised.

Sacrificing workers and the planet, for profit

During his speech, Trump declared that he would address the cost of living crisis and soaring cost of energy by encouraging exploitation of the natural resources in the United States. “We will drill, baby, drill,” Trump said to the convention hall. 

“By slashing energy costs, we will in turn reduce the cost of transportation, manufacturing and all household goods. So much starts with energy. And remember, we have more liquid gold under our feet than any other country by far. We are a nation that has the opportunity to make an absolute fortune with its energy. We have it and China doesn’t.”

It is not new for Republican candidates to promise jobs and benefits for workers in exchange for striking down environmental regulations and violating Indigenous land rights, over uninhibited extraction of gas and oil in the United States. Trump in his 2016 campaign had triumphantly declared, “We’re preparing bold action to lift the restrictions on American energy…and we’re going to put our miners back to work.”

The Republican Party platform for 2024 states: “Under President Trump, the US became the Number One Producer of Oil and Natural Gas in the World — and we will soon be again by lifting restrictions on American Energy Production and terminating the Socialist Green New Deal.” 

But is the drive to extract the earth’s resources necessarily compatible with protecting workers and jobs?

Already Congressional Republicans moved to block the enforcement of life-saving health regulations for coal miners. 

If Trump and the Republican Party implement their drastic program, not only will the planet suffer—so will workers, who conservatives have historically left with the least protections possible. Trump implemented a variety of policies that undermined federal safety regulations, including slashing the amount of Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) inspectors. 

Trump enables tip stealing

Trump also made a big deal about the Republican Party’s proposal of eliminating taxes on tips, telling a confusing anecdote about a waitress he spoke to about the need for this policy. Trump seemed in disbelief that he had a meaningful political conversation with his waitress. “You know, most people who go out, they hire consultants. They pay them [millions] of dollars… I got my information from a very smart waitress. That’s better than spending millions of dollars.”

The Republican Party’s platform states regarding “no tax on tips”, “we will eliminate Taxes on Tips for millions of Restaurant and Hospitality Workers, and pursue additional Tax Cuts.” 

How much good can “no tax on tips” do in an administration (Trump’s) which implemented a “tip stealing rule,” which made it easier for employers to pocket up to USD 5.8 billion worth of workers’ tips? Or which opposed any increase to the federal minimum wage? 

So-called border “invasion” rhetoric divides working class

Trump spent most of his speech harping on policies that divide workers from one another, including a very fine line between recent immigrants, specifically from Venezuela and El Salvador, versus the rest of the working class. Trump and the Republicans have promised to carry out the largest mass deportation the country has ever seen. “We also have an illegal immigration crisis, and it’s taking place right now, as we sit here in this beautiful arena. It’s a massive invasion at our southern border that has spread misery, crime, poverty, disease, and destruction to communities all across our land. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it.”

In an economy ruled by the corporate elite, are migrant workers the true enemies of US-born workers? Economists cite migrant workers as a key reason for job growth despite the Federal Reserve’s aggressive raising of interest rates. 

“There’s been something of a mystery—how are we continuing to get such extraordinary strong job growth with inflation still continuing to come down?’’ Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute and a former chief economist at the Labor Department, told PBS. “The immigration numbers being higher than what we had thought—that really does pretty much solve that puzzle.’’

The policies that are set to come from a second Trump term can only hurt working people. As labor journalist Alexandra Bradbury writes in Labor Notes, “In case there’s any doubt: billionaire Trump, who as an employer has fought unions and stiffed workers, and as a TV personality made ‘You’re fired’ his catchphrase, is not for the little guy.”

While workers in the US are increasingly feeling discouraged by what both the Republican and Democratic parties have to offer, many people are instead turning to alternative options. Claudia De La Cruz and Karina Garcia, are running on the ticket of the Party for Socialism and Liberation on an explicitly socialist platform, and Dr. Jill Stein, running with the Green Party and Dr. Cornel West, running as an independent, are running on progressive platforms. Either way, most working class formations are gearing up for a strong fight back to the next presidential administration and their plans to shred the rights of the people.