Jon Queally: Khanna Sounds Alarm as Thousands of Factory Workers Laid Off Amid Trump Tariff Chaos

“Imagine if federal worker unions and Democratic Party officials showed up at the plant gate of a company that was about to close its doors,” said one labor advocate. “Why aren’t the Democrats doing this?”

Congressman Ro Khanna is raising the alarm about mass layoffs in the U.S. economy resulting from President Donald Trump’s failed economic policies. Over 4,000 factory workers lost their jobs this week due to firings or plant closures.

On Thursday, automaker Stellantis, citing conditions created by Trump’s tariffs, announced temporary layoffs for 900 workers, represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW). “The affected U.S. employees,” reported CNN, “work at five different Midwest plants: the Warren Stamping and Sterling Stamping plants in Michigan, as well as the Indiana Transmission Plant, Kokomo Transmission Plant and Kokomo Casting Plant, all in Kokomo, Indiana.”

In a social media thread on Saturday night, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)—a lawmaker who has advocating loudly, including in books and in Congress, for an industrialization policy that would bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States—posted a litany of other layoffs announced recently as part of the economic devastation and chaos unleashed by Trump as well as conditions that reveal how vulnerable U.S. workers remain.

“This week,” Khanna wrote, “19 factories had mass layoffs, 15 closed, and 4,134 factory workers across America lost their jobs. Cleveland-Cliffs laid off 1,200 workers in Michigan and Minnesota as they deal with the impact of Trump’s tariffs on steel and auto imports.”

For union leaders representing those workers at Cleveland-Cliffs, they said “chaos” was the operative word. “Chaos. You know? A lot of questions. You’ve got a lot of people who worked there a long time that are potentially losing their job,” Bill Wilhelm, a servicing representative and editor with UAW Local 600, told local ABC News affiliate WXYZ-Channel 7.

The United Auto Workers says the layoff fund set aside for those losing their jobs won’t last long and find them new jobs of that quality will not be easy. “Our first concern will be to look around at all the companies where we have members and see if we can find jobs,” said the local’s 1st vice president, Mark DePaoli. “I mean, jobs are going to be the key. We need jobs and currently at this time, the majority of the companies that we work with and represent our members at are not hiring.”

The pain of workers in families in Dearborn, as indicated by Khanna’s thread, is just the tip of the iceberg. In post after post, he cataloged a stream of new layoffs impacting workers nationwide and across various sectors:

• Poultry distributor Perdue Farms laid off 433 workers this week in Monterey, Tennessee.
• As part of mass layoffs to the US branches, tractor manufacturer John Deere laid off 9 workers from its Ankeny, Iowa, facility. The company has also voiced concerns over the impact of Trump’s tariffs on production.
• Semiconductor manufacturer Summit Interconnect closed in Santa Ana, California, costing 74 people their jobs. Congress needs to invest in manufacturing to guide the U.S. into leading semiconductor manufacturing.
• Automotive and industrial power transmission manufacturer Bando USA Inc. cut 65 jobs from their facility in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
• Coal manufacturer Wilson Creek Energy LLC cut 332 jobs after closing their plant in Friedens, PA. Another 93 workers were cut when the Grantsville, Maryland plant closed.
• In Sumner, Washington pipe manufacturer Advanced Drainage Systems closed, costing 54 employees their jobs.
• Electrical equipment manufacturer Sensata Technologies closed in Carpinteria, California, resulting in 57 employees losing their jobs. The company is closing to offset the rising costs of inflation.
• In San Jose, California, electronics manufacturer InvenSense Inc. laid off 55 people due to new market conditions in the broadening tech industry.
• Battery manufacturer Quantumscape Battery Inc. laid off 53 workers in San Jose, California, as part of a restructuring effort.
• Medical device manufacturer Biosense Webster Inc. cut 9 jobs when it permanently closed its Los Gatos, California, facility.
• Biotech manufacturer ImmunityBio, Inc. laid off 9 employees from its El Segundo, California, facility and one from its facility in Culver City, California.
• Food processor Del Monte Foods, Inc. in Hannaford, California, cut 378.
• In Agawam, Massachusetts, bakery wholesaler Connecticut Pie, LLC DBA Diana’s Bakery laid off 229 workers.
• Poultry plant AlaTrade Foods laid off 165 employees at its Phenix City, Alabama, facility.
• Food products manufacturer, Rich Products Corporation laid off 139 workers after closing its Santa Fe Springs facility in California to offset rising costs.
• In Townson, Maryland, sports apparel manufacturer Fila USA, Inc. laid off 112 workers. The company also laid off 18 employees from their facility in Curtis Bay, Maryland.
• Engineering services company, S&B Engineers and Constructors, Ltd. in Kingsport, Tennessee, cut 112 workers.
• In Bridgeview, Illinois, 88 workers lost their jobs when sustainable packaging company Smurfit Westrock closed.
• Chemical manufacturer Syzygy Plasmonics, conducted layoffs in two Houston, Texas, facilities, cutting 68 jobs total.
• Packaging products manufacturer Pregis closed in San Antonio, California. Forty-five people lost their jobs.
• In Longview, Texas, construction supplies manufacturer S & B Engineers and Constructors cut 43 jobs.
• Board game manufacturer, Edaron, LLC closed in South Hadley, Massachusetts, cutting 24 jobs.
• In Holliston, Massachusetts, cannabis manufacturer Pharma Cann laid off 19 workers. 
• Medical management facility, Prime MSO, LLC closed in Encino, California, costing 6 people their jobs.

With public sector workers being fired in massive numbers nationwide due to the blitzkrieg unleashed by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, private sector workers are no strangers to mass layoffs within a U.S. economy dominated by corporate interests and union density still at historic lows.

Les Leopold, executive director of the Labor Institute who has been sounding the alarm for years about the devastation associated with mass layoffs, wrote recently about how the situation is even worse than he previously understood. On top of existing corporate greed and the stock buyback phenomena driving many of the mass layoffs in the private sector, Trump’s mismanagement of tariff and trade policy is almost certain to make things worse, triggering more job losses in addition to higher costs on consumer goods.

In order to combat Trump, Leopold wrote last month, “Democrats should take a page from Trump and put job protection on the top of their agenda. As tariffs bite and cause job destruction, the Democrats should show up and support those laid-off workers.” 

Instead of simply calling Trump’s tariffs “insane,” which many rightly have, the Democrats “should call them job-killing tariffs,” advised Leopold. “As prices rise, they can blame Trump for that as well.” 

With Trump’s economic policies coming into full view, the picture is bleak for businesses large and small—and that means more pain for workers.

As Axios‘ Ben Berkowitz reported Saturday. “When everything gets more expensive everywhere because of tariffs, that starts a cycle for businesses, too — one that might end with layoffs, bankruptcies, and higher prices for the survivors’ customers,” he explained. “The cycle is just starting now, but the pain is immediate.”

The “big picture,” Berkowitz continued, is this:

The stock market is not the economy, but if you want a decent proxy for Main Street businesses, look at the Russell 2000, a broad measure of the stock market’s small companies across industries.

—It’s down almost 20% this year alone.
—That in and of itself doesn’t make a business turn the lights off, but it says something about public confidence in their prospects.
—”The market is like a real time poll … this is going to impact all businesses in one way or another undoubtedly,” Ken Mahoney of Mahoney Asset Management wrote Friday. 

Khanna’s Democratic colleague in the House, Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas, said the impacts of Trump’s tariff and austerity policies are very real and already felt in his district as he roasted Trump for having a reported golfing weekend as the global economy reels and American workers and retirees suffer:

In Sunday comments to Common Dreams, Leopold wanted to know where Khanna and other Democrats were last year when John Deere laid off a thousand workers. 

“What do the progressive Democrats have to say about the tens of thousands of mass layoffs that take place each month? Radio silence,” he said. “It would be useful if they had a policy that addressed Wall Street induced mass layoffs rather than just opposing tariffs, but I wouldn’t bet on that.”

On the question of silence and who, ultimately, will stand up for American workers—whether in the public or private sector—it’s not clear who will emerge as a true defender or what forces would galvanize to truly represent the interests of the nation’s working class.

“Imagine if federal worker unions and Democratic Party officials showed up at the plant gate of a company that was about to close its doors to finance hefty stock buybacks for its billionaire owners,” Leopold wrote in early March. “A show of support for their fellow layoff victims and a unity message aimed at stopping billionaire job destruction would be simple to craft and easy to share. It would be news.” 

“Why aren’t the Democrats doing this?” he asked.

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First published in Common Dreams. Licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Jon Queally is managing editor of Common Dreams.