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Stock markets slid and business executives frowned when President Donald Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on auto imports, but he could take solace that the nation’s most prominent union president applauded the move. Shawn Fain, the usually combative president of the United Auto Workers, heaped praise on the tariffs, saying they would help “end the free-trade disaster that has devastated working class communities for decades.” Fain added, “The Trump administration has made history with today’s actions.”

Fain’s words got plenty of attention—he had been an outspoken supporter of Kamala Harris during the 2024 campaign, and many Americans saw his praise of the auto tariffs as evidence that labor unions were enthusiastic about Trump.

But now, five weeks later, it’s abundantly clear that most unions are angry as hell about Trump 2.0. “We’ve been facing a barrage of attacks from the administration,” said Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s main union federation, in an interview. “They’re slashing jobs. They’re ripping up union contracts. They’re cutting services. Trump’s delivered on nothing that he promised. We would say his scorecard is a fail.”

Trump’s anti-union moves have come faster and been vaster than labor leaders had anticipated. He and Elon Musk have fired tens of thousands of federal workers while ignoring job protections in their union contracts. Trump dismissed the chair of the National Labor Relations Board well before her term ended, leaving the board without a quorum to function. He issued an executive order to destroy collective bargaining rights for 1 million federal employees. “That’s the biggest assault against labor in our history,” Shuler said.

America’s labor unions—which represent 16 million workers—have responded to Trump’s blitz in several ways. First, they’ve mounted a huge defensive effort, largely through lawsuits, to save the jobs of fired federal employees and to preserve federal workers’ bargaining rights. (A federal judge ruled that Trump violated the law........

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