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Trump’s illegal war against Iran is deeply unpopular among American workers and the broader population. A poll this week by Quinnipiac University showed 53 percent of voters opposing military action against Iran and 74 percent opposing the sending of ground troops into the besieged country. 

The polls are only a pale reflection of the magnitude of public opposition, including among those who voted for Trump because he promised to “end forever wars.” Even the New York Times has been forced to admit, “support for the strikes is far lower than what it has been at the beginnings of previous foreign conflicts,” including in Afghanistan (2001) and the second Iraq War (2003).  

In the Detroit auto plants, there is widespread concern over higher fuel prices, a potential economic recession and new job losses on top of recent mass layoffs, including 1,100 workers at GM’s Factory Zero in January. But the concerns go beyond the immediate economic impact, with workers expressing anger at the mass killing of Iranian civilians and concern that Trump is using the war to accelerate his plans to establish a dictatorship.   

Outside of the Stellantis Detroit Assembly Complex-Jefferson plant, a worker said that US wars are “always about money and controlling power. There is a war going on in Iran now, but I think the war is actually going to be fought at some point here on American soil. I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to put us under lock and key right here in the United States.”

Referring to the murder of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by Trump’s immigration Gestapo in the streets of Minneapolis, she said, “The ICE agents are terrorists. What police officers run around with masks on? They are criminals who don’t want their identity to be known. I am absolutely nervous about that.”

She added, “I feel like a lot of us won’t be having jobs anytime soon, or we’ll have jobs making missiles. Maybe we’ll be like Rosie the Riveter in World War II,” she said, referring to the conversion of the auto industry during the war to make bombers, tanks and other weapons. 

It is noteworthy that United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain has pointed to wartime labor relations during World War II, which included a ban on strikes and ruthless speedup in exchange for the automatic dues deduction system, as a model for the UAW bureaucracy today. 

“I’m not going to lie. I think Trump is absolutely, positively crazy. I don’t really know what we’re going to do unless we fight against the government. We’re the ones at the bottom. I feel like if we all step aside together, they’ll just fall through. A lot of people want to take up and go against the 1 percent, but they’re scared to strike because you got people living paycheck to paycheck. We have the power, but we don’t know it.”

“A lot of us were ready to strike in 2023, but the UAW kept us working in this plant. You have to always be ready to walk out because you never know what’s going to happen because they’re not for us. I’ll eat beans if I have to because the only power that we have is to stop letting them control us. That’s the only power that we have, but we have to do it together.”

The worker said the UAW bureaucracy’s collusion with management in the plant led to dangerous and deadly conditions. “Safety at our plant is an absolute joke. It’s 100 degrees [38 degrees Celsius] in there, and they say you can work just fine.”

She recalled the wildcat strikes at Jefferson and other Stellantis plants in March 2020 as COVID-19 was spreading and management and the UAW kept workers on the job. “I was surprised at how many people stopped working and were standing on the blue line away from the machines. They came down and took our names, it was like, ‘Oh my God, we’re all getting ready to be fired.’ But since it was all of us, they couldn’t fire us all. It was the workers that organized it, not the union. The union was not on our side. 

“Everybody knew somebody who got sick and died from COVID, so it was right in our face. So, with this war, if they start sending troops and it’s our kids, it’s going to be right in our faces again. That’s when people are going to have to do something, just like when COVID hit. It’s a ‘react when your back is against the wall’ kind of thing.”

She concluded, “Trump has nothing to do with us. Some people talk about him being a racist. There’s no doubt. But I think the only color he truly cares about is green.” 

The World Socialist Web Site also spoke with a worker at Ford Dearborn Truck Plant. The worker made these comments after watching the March 8 emergency online conference “Stop the war against Iran,” which was sponsored by the WSWS, the Socialist Equality Party and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality:

“The expanding global war is a product of decades of imperialist violence made in America. The United States’ game plan for world domination is failing. It has no new colony to conquer. It turns guns on us here at home and on our brothers and sisters in Venezuela, Iran and beyond.

“Iran is an ancient society, now 90 million people strong, facing a criminal war controlled by a criminal gang of fascists seeking to defend its wealth and power with decapitation strikes and an expanding war of genocide.

“The world has watched as America and its Israeli attack dog perfected its methods of terror and mass murder against Palestine which are now being used in Iran. Innocent people are being killed in their homes, children in schools, workers at jobs. Desalinization plants that produce drinking water have been struck by US and Israeli bombs. 

“Under the guise of religious morality and righteousness the murderers advance. The entire enterprise reveals itself to be more demonic day by day, bombing hospitals, schools, power plants and all the essentials of civilized life.”

He continued, “The Nazi party leaders were placed on trial at Nuremberg for crimes against peace. Trump and Hegseth and the others will find their day in court for these attacks and their war of extermination spawned as the capitalist ruling elite turns to fascism once again, as their system and source of vast wealth plunges into collapse.

“Germany has supported the Ukrainian war with weapons. The ruling class in every country supports the Iranian war because they hope to profit from the chaos and cannot push back against America and its overwhelming military force.

“Germany, Great Britain, France and America are all nations that historically have profited from war, oppression and abuse. Today they all are joining together in fear and violence to protect their right to exploit the world working class and their ill-gotten riches through an expanding genocide. 

“This is all directed against the global working classes to maintain all power in a system that will always send workers to their death via wars fought for profits. The working class faces two options under capitalism: work and die in a collapsing society that has been stripped of all dignity and semblance of humanity and fairness, or terrorize the world in an expanding war to oppress the weak and the greater working class.”

Pointing to the way to stop this onslaught, the worker referred to the Turkish coal miners who had seized their mine and the campaign by Will Lehman, the socialist and internationalist candidate for UAW president, who was one of the speakers at the online rally. 

“When workers in Turkey broke through a police line and seized the mining corporation and started running it themselves, they declared that to run that company they were providing the working class a blueprint for the greater revolution of the global working class. This is the message that Will Lehman brought to the webinar and that we will be fighting for in the campaign for him to be president of the UAW in this year’s election.”