Detroit – Autoworkers for Trump founder and retired Michigan autoworker Brian Pannebecker introduced President Donald Trump for tariff “Liberation Day” at the White House April 2nd.
“The president invited me personally and said bring 20 of my guys,” said Pannebecker, who introduced Trump at three 2024 Michigan campaign rallies, in an interview about his Rose Garden appearance. “He is keeping his promises to us.”
Forty years ago, US import restrictions brought by the Reagan Administration and a protectionist Democratic Congress dramatically changed the US automotive manufacturing landscape. Now Trump has re-assembled Reagan’s bipartisan tariff coalition as US industry faces another historic shift.
The Trump Administration’s tariffs echo proposed restrictions by Michigan Democratic Rep. John Dingell in the early 1980s. Like Reagan, Trump won the crucial state of Michigan in 2024 by appealing to a broad swath of working-class voters with a pro-American, pro-deregulation message.
The same dynamic is playing out here four decades later – on steroids. Trump not only won Detroit’s automotive working class – but rural timber and farm voters. Mainstream media stories largely ignore these voters, framing tariffs as a threat to Wall Street stock values.
But Main Street workers like Pennebacker were front of mind – and front of stage – at Trump’s Liberation Day.
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Pannebecker said. “I grew up just north of Detroit, Michigan, in Macomb County, known as the home of the Reagan Democrats. My first vote for president was for Ronald Reagan. I thought that was gonna be the best president I ever saw in my lifetime until Donald J. Trump came along.”
Significantly, Trump’s polices are echoed by United Autoworkers Union President Shawn Fain and by Dingell’s wife, Debbie, who inherited her husband’s seat in 2015. In a divided country, tariffs are an issue with broad bipartisan support.