WASHINGTON—On April 29, four weeks after introducing tariffs of at least 10 percent on nearly every country, President Donald Trump stood before a crowd of blue-collar workers in Michigan to mark his 100th day in office.
“After decades of politicians who destroyed Detroit to build up Beijing,” Trump said, “you finally have a champion for workers in the White House.”
Since his first term, Trump has broken with Republican Party orthodoxy, particularly on free trade and globalization. By championing steep tariffs and protectionist policies—cornerstones of his “America First” agenda—he has attracted a surprising new crowd to the party: union workers.
Republican National Committee member Shawn Steel said the GOP has become the party of the working class.
“What Trump has done, which is really intriguing to me, is he has taught Country Club, middle-class Republicans to work and align themselves with the working class,” he told The Epoch Times.
“That hasn’t happened in 120 years.”
Some have said that Trump has reshaped the Grand Old Party in ways that were once unimaginable.
He has combined traditional Republican planks—such as tax cuts, deregulation, and boosting energy production—with policies often associated with the political left, including tariffs, TrumpRx, and government ownership in private companies.
Trump, however, avoids boxing his policies into a single ideology. He refers to them as “common sense” solutions. And a growing number of party members have rallied behind them.
From President Ronald Reagan through to Trump, the GOP has consistently supported free trade, which has greatly benefited the United States, former Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore told The Epoch Times.
He estimated that the U.S. economy could grow at least half a percentage point faster without current tariffs.
Moore also said Trump’s tariffs on China are understandable given Beijing’s behavior. Still, he said the GOP should find a middle ground.
“If you want to isolate China, you have to have everybody else aboard, and so you don’t want to antagonize countries like Canada unnecessarily,” Moore said.
Steel said Republicans still hope the tariffs are temporary.
“The problem is we haven’t had free trade in decades,” Steel said, citing countries such as China that distort the world trade order with heavy subsidies and slave labor.
