The UAW’s relationship with the Trump administration? It’s complicated

Marketplace All-in-One

Marketplace

News, Business

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2025

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jeep and RAM’s parent company Stellantis announced at least temporary layoffs as it shifts strategy in light of new tariffs. The Wall Street Journal says Volkswagen plans to put an import fee line onto car sticker prices. Yet tariffs are winning tentative support from the United Auto Workers Union, who hopes that tariffs bring more production back to American union plants. Plus, commodity prices drop, and VC dollars flow to AI startups.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Remember when? Once upon a time, there was this thing called globalization. I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. I'm looking at market screens now showing the tariff sell-off of stocks is continuing today after the NASDAQ index fell 6% yesterday. The biggest drop since the pandemic lockdowns took hold in 2020. Nasdaq futures are down 2 and a quarter percent now. Dow futures down 2.3 percent, another 937 points after the nearly 1,700 point drop yesterday, 4 percent there. The losses more than doubled this morning with news China is responding to new U.S. tariffs,
0:39.0	with trade penalties of its own, a 34% tariff on U.S. goods.
0:43.8	Round the world stock indicators are also in red.
0:46.9	London, Paris, Frankfurt, all down more than 2%.
0:49.6	Tokyo's Niki fell 3.4%.
0:52.6	Today, you get the picture.
0:53.9	Let's do the commodities numbers.
0:56.8	Yes, down crude oil in New York, down 13 percent over two days. Copper and soybeans also down as traders factor in a U.S. and perhaps global economic downturn amid the new Trump import taxes. Marketplaces Elizabeth Troval has that.
1:12.9	Tariffs have cast a shadow on the upcoming planting season for Iowa soybean farmer Dave Walton.
1:19.6	It feels a bit like today. Cloudy, overcast, gray. He says before this round of tariffs,
1:26.7	soybean prices were almost breaking even.
1:29.7	With that additional drop in price, it just creates more red ink.
1:33.1	So we went from a break even or small loss to a larger loss.
1:37.3	As for crude oil, the commodity of all commodities, Robo Banks Joe DeLora, says new tariffs make U.S. consumer products
1:46.5	priceier that will cool the demand for fuel for trans-oceanic shipping and other transportation.
1:54.1	Companies are just going to cut back on orders that's going to decrease domestic usage of logistics,
1:59.8	transportation, and shipping.
2:01.7	Gasoline demand could also take a hit. Consumers may be less likely to get in their cars and
2:07.4	drive to the store. You're not going to go shopping at Target if the $15 t-shirt costs you $30.
2:15.9	OPEC Plus is adding oil supply, which is also pushing down prices,
2:20.7	lower prices that could hurt U.S. oil producers. Sisy and Lang with the Colorado School of Mines.
2:27.5	The Shale Revolution means we're now, you know, big producers, the biggest producer. And so then
	...

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