DETROIT — UAW President Shawn Fain said Sunday he supports the tariffs in the auto industry pushed by President Donald Trump, but only if they are done for the right reason and in the "right way."

"I think it needs to be not under the guise of drugs, immigration or border security but they need to be strategic in how they do them," Fain said after a speaking engagement at a Detroit church.

Fain said since the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect in 1994, the United State has lost 90,000 manufacturing facilities, an average of 1,800 per state.

"That's why we're where we're at now. We don't produce how we used to so we support tariffs in the right way.

"It's not the final solution or the end all be all. The trade deals would have to fix the problem, but tariffs are a means, they're a tool in the toolbox to motivate companies to do the right thing," he said.

Earlier this month, Trump levied new tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, meaning import taxes on billions of dollars in vehicles, their components and aftersales parts as they travel across the borders between the United States, Canada and Mexico every year — sometimes multiple times.

GM is most exposed to tariffs, selling the most vehicles built in Canada and Mexico in 2025 so far at 28% and 5.3% of its U.S. sales, respectively, according to auto information website Edmunds.com Inc. Stellantis had 25% of its sales assembled in Mexico and 4.1% in Canada. Ford, which produces the most vehicles in the United States, had 18% of its sales from Mexico and 1.5% from Canada in the first two months of the year.

The American Automotive Policy Council, which represents Ford, GM and Stellantis in Washington, has asked for an exemption on parts and vehicles that meet the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement requirements that Trump signed into law in 2020.

As a guest speaker Sunday at Central United Methodist Church on Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Fain related union principles to teachings throughout the Bible, quoting scriptures from Matthew, Luke and Ecclesiastes and highlighting the union's core principles: a living wage, adequate healthcare, dignified retirement, and a life off the job.

Fain said politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, "have sold us out to billionaires" and the Trump administration "has given the richest men in the world the keys to the kingdom, while our families, our communities, are left scrambling for scraps. ...

"If there was ever a time when we needed sustenance for our spirits, it is now," Fain told about 50 church members. "This isn't just a poetic metaphor. This is an urgent calling, because as workers, as people of faith, as stewards of justice, we're facing forces that would scorch the very earth we stand on," Fain said.

The Central United Methodist Church calls itself a "historic center for social justice activism" and said in a statement that it invited Fain to speak there to hear his "reflections on the intersection of faith, labor and the ongoing fight for economic justice."

The union president received a standing ovation from church members who lined up to shake hands after he concluded.

Maureen Taylor, chair of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, a union representing underemployed, unemployed, and unemployable people, said Fain was asked to speak at the church in September 2024 and the wait was worth it.

"It took us five months to get him here but he said all of the right things. We're going to stay in this fight for social justice," Taylor said.

When told by a church member after his address that they wanted UAW members to be more active in politics, Fain, a 31-year member of the union, said it's been a struggle to get more members to "fight, to stand up.

"When it directly affects them or their plant, they're willing to," Fain said. "I wish we could make a phone call and there would be 20,000 people on the streets in an hour but we're just not there."

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