President Trump Will Make the Forgotten Longshore Workers of America Prosperous Again
Everybody remembers the forgotten men and women of America after they’re no longer there. After months of threats, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), representing tens of thousands of workers who load and unload ships at various ports across the US, from the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts to major US rivers, finally went on strike this week for the first time since 1977 against the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX). Although a tentative deal has been struck between the ILA and USMX until January, a strike wouldn’t have been necessary with President Trump in office. Kamala Harris’s globalist trade agenda and inflation crisis has betrayed America’s blue-collar base and, this November, President Trump will make workers prosper again.
The ILA strike was sparked during a new round of contract negotiations because USMX member Maersk, a global box operator that provides port-to-port shipping services, was discovered to have been using an auto gate system at US ports to process trucks without labor, allegedly in violation of prior agreements. Additionally, the USMX was, for months, refusing to guarantee wages for longshore and dockworkers that could keep up with the pace of Kamala Harris’s inflation crisis. Considering the backbreaking labor longshore and dockworkers endure on a daily basis for Americans, this, understandably, was perceived as a giant sucker punch to the face.
“Everybody understands the dockworkers because they were decimated by this inflation, just like everybody else in our country and beyond,” President Trump has stated.
And, according to the ILA, the union’s president Harold Daggett “enjoys a long relationship with Donald Trump going back decades in New York City.” The ILA also notes that “Both Trump and Daggett are the same age and were both from Queens, New York.” President Trump and Daggett reportedly met at Mar-a-Lago in November 2023, and Daggett stated that he and President Trump “had a wonderful, productive 90-minute meeting where I expressed to President Trump the threat of automation to American workers.” Daggett added that “President Trump promised to support the ILA in its opposition to automated terminals in the US.”
With President Trump back in the White House, workers will be treated fairly and no longer need to go on strikes like the ILA’s this month, and America’s blue-collar base will be able to get back to work.
Kamala Harris has allowed foreign shipping companies to take advantage of our workers. The top 10 largest shipping companies who are board members of the USMX together own 85% of the global shipping market share. Some of the top companies with the largest share include France’s CMA CGM represented by Kurt Mittenzwei, which owns 12.4%; Communist China’s COSCO, represented by Paul Nazzaro, which owns 12.3%, and of course, Denmark’s Maersk, chaired by Albert Gebhardt, which owns 17%.
Now, what do these companies all have in common? Two things: they’re not American and have been allowed to make record profits without paying our longshore workers fair wages. Since the China Virus pandemic, these shipping companies went from making millions in profits to billions, attributable to the massive increase in online shopping and the US’s overdependence on foreign-manufactured goods.
Only the top-tier longshore workers make an annual salary of $81,000 while working a standard 40 hours per week. However, longshore workers make it into the six-figure range if they take on extra shifts and work 100 hours per week. And extra shifts in this line of work are no easy feat. Longshore workers are regularly exposed to hazardous working conditions, like working on slick or slippery surfaces; dangerous substances from ports, like oil and industrial cleaning products; and are regularly tasked with lifting heavy cargo all day long.
On top of this, the Biden-Harris White House has refused to intervene in the ILA’s negotiations with the USMX outside of finally expressing support for the longshore workers, likely because the workers have demanded that their salaries match up with the rate of Harris’s and Biden’s inflation-ridden economy, caused by their Green New Deal federal spending agenda. The Green New Deal has waged war on domestic energy production and blue-collar longshore workers, making basic living expenses nearly unaffordable. These sentiments are echoed by Maria Bulone, the granddaughter of a longshoreman, who stated that “we must protect and support our hardworking families and friends who work hard 24/7 to give us what we need.”
Lastly, Kamala Harris has done nothing to protect longshore workers’ jobs against foreign shipping companies that have been utilizing automation at ports instead of workers. During Harris’s time as VP, various longshore worker unions have been fighting against foreign companies that have automated various parts of their operations at ports, which has led to considerable job loss. Trade unionist Rebecca Schlabb discusses how automation has impacted ports on the West Coast of the United States, requiring over 100 workers less to operate equipment like cranes, and with no signal workers needed to communicate with crane operators. The ILA reiterated the importance of protecting workers’ income in a statement highlighting that “machines don’t feed families.”
The longshore workers have been abandoned by Kamala Harris, who vocalizes her support in the eleventh hour for blue-collar America, while making their lives an utter misery through bad policy. It is no surprise that a record number of union workers have been on strike during her time as Vice President, fighting against inflation and job loss. President Trump has been a longstanding ally of longshore workers, and will protect their jobs by reducing inflation, cutting radical Green New Deal spending, and ensuring that foreign companies will not strip them of their income. Only with President Trump’s leadership will strikes like this end, so the heroic work of America’s longshore workers can continue to make America prosperous once again.
Joanna Wischer was a senior policy analyst in the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy under President Trump where she worked on advancing the Buy American, Hire American initiative. She currently serves as a policy analyst on the Donald Trump for President 2024 campaign. All opinions expressed on Substack are her own and not affiliated with the campaign.
Adam Molon is a guest columnist for Peter Navarro’s Taking Back Trump’s America, a China scholar, and the author of NewSentry.
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