STERLING HEIGHTS >> Michael Taylor, the mayor of this auto-industry-dominated city north of Detroit, has had more conversations than he can count with nervous neighbors and alarmed industry leaders about President Donald Trump’s tariff plans, which Taylor sees as “the single-biggest threat to our local economy.”

“We’re still scrambling to figure out what it all means, and it’s coming at a breakneck speed,” said Taylor, a lifelong Republican who voted against Trump in 2020 and 2024. “If those tariffs go into effect as promised, it would be devastating.”

But James Benson, whose job at the Stellantis plant in Sterling Heights is his eighth auto industry job in 25 years, sees the tariffs as a chance to level the global playing field for him and other workers who’ve seen a parade of politicians unable to stop decades of contraction. A Trump supporter since 2020, Benson said he’s willing to endure short-term turmoil for a president he believes can stanch a steady drip of job losses.

“Do I think tariffs are an end-all for everything? No. But I do think they’re an excellent bargaining chip, especially after watching the aftermath of NAFTA gutting us like a fish. I’ve seen us lose so many jobs,” he said. “If you’re asking me if I’m willing to have a little short-term pain, well, we’ve already had long-term pain. … Nothing has been benefiting us.”

If Trump’s tariff threats materialize, this region of the country dominated by the domestic auto industry stands to take as big a hit as anywhere. The president has said he would impose a 25 percent levy on goods from Canada and Mexico, though both those tariffs have been paused.

A tariff on imported steel and aluminum goes into effect March 12, potentially affecting every car that rolls off a Detroit-area assembly line. Billions of dollars in goods crisscross between Canada and the United States from points in Michigan, and economists and industry analysts warn that tariffs or, worse, an escalating trade war could kneecap the economy of a region already battered by globalization and foreign competition.

Still, in Sterling Heights, home of a massive Stellantis plant, Trump’s tariff policy has emerged as a Rorschach test of sorts for the controversial trade policy and for the first month of Trump’s second term.

And the fissures that have emerged here mirror the polarized debate over much of what Trump has done so far, from his efforts to downsize the federal bureaucracy to sending immigrants to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

His critics — Democrats, yes, but also anxious economists, industry experts and the occasional apprehensive mayor — worry that tariffs on Canadian steel used to make American cars will have a calamitous effect on a state still grappling with the fallout from decades of economic turmoil. The price hikes and other problems tariffs create will be felt far beyond the factory walls of the Big Three automakers. Some believe tariff worries are already having an anticipatory effect, with people and businesses curtailing spending in fear of what’s to come.

Michigan’s autoworkers have been a coveted group of voters to both political parties for decades, both because they’re a sizable percentage of the electorate in a perennial battleground state and because of the symbolism that comes from the support of workers in a foundational, if embattled, American industry. Trump has long contended that even though the auto union’s endorsement routinely goes to Democrats, rank-and-file members largely lean toward him. In 2024, the United Auto Workers union endorsed Kamala Harris for president, and she received strong support from its president, Shawn Fain. But Fain said earlier this year that his union is “ready to work with Trump.”

Through it all, Michigan has hemorrhaged auto manufacturing jobs, with a nearly 35 percent decrease since 1990, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But Trump’s supporters in the Detroit area, including some of the workers who piece cars together on assembly lines like the 286-acre facility in Sterling Heights, say government policies to this point have not done enough to protect autoworkers’ jobs, while giving foreign manufacturers unfettered access to American markets. They see Trump’s move as strategic, even if some concede they’ve been surprised by some of his more unconventional decisions. Still, they applaud him for using access to American markets as a bargaining chip and are willing to endure a few shaky months for a more solid future.

“I understand that it can mean some short-term pain,” said Dave Weidemann, 65, of St. Clair Shores, Michigan, who retired as an autoworker in January. “If we can’t reverse that, that’s a problem. But we’ve been beaten down — autoworkers and the city as a whole. We’ve been losing jobs for a while now. … We have to do something different. And everybody’s afraid to do anything different, because it could be worse, but we have to try something different sooner or later. We can’t keep running ourselves into the ground. That’s the definition of insanity.”

Trump announced the 25 percent tariffs on imported steel and aluminum earlier this month, saying the levies will promote greater production from domestic producers. Other price hikes loom; Trump has paused, but didn’t cancel, plans to impose 25 percent tariffs on goods produced in Canada and Mexico. He initially said the import taxes were an emergency effort to slow the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants into the United States. But after conversations with leaders in both neighboring countries, Trump backed away from those tariffs — for now.

Trump was elected by many voters who thought he would be a better leader on the economy, as the Biden administration’s spending efforts to pull the country out of a post-pandemic economic tailspin contributed to rising inflation. Some voters balked as Biden and other Democrats touted signs of a recovering economy as ordinary Americans saw ballooning grocery bills.

Trump vowed to bring economic relief on Day 1 of his administration. But he has also used the threat of tariffs to advance other policy goals, like getting Venezuela to repatriate people deported from the United States, or getting Mexico to surge thousands of troops to the border to stanch the flow of migrants.

Some economists say that is a high-stakes game of chicken, injecting instability into global markets, fraying relationships with allies, and spiking prices in both the short and long terms, especially in manufacturing-heavy states like Michigan.

“It’s really hard to know how this will move through the economy,” said Matt Ross, a finance professor at Western Michigan University. “For a state that imports a lot to have a potential trade war on the horizon with its two closest partners … residents of Michigan should actually be perhaps a little bit terrified.”

Trump has told his supporters that patience will be required to effect some of the changes he has promised.

“WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!),” Trump said in a social media post on Truth Social at the beginning of February. “BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID.”

It’s unclear how short the short term will be. Inflation rose 0.5 percent in January, according to the Labor Department, part of a 90-day trend that may show inflation is heating up again after dropping in 2024, according to the Associated Press. And the Federal Reserve’s report on industrial production showed factory output dropped 0.1 percent in January, mostly because of a 5.2 percent drop in manufacturing cars and car parts.

But some of Trump’s supporters see his tariff efforts as a welcome change from the promises they’ve been fed before.

Michigan is a battleground state coveted by both political parties in presidential elections, so workers there said they are used to a conveyor belt of politicians who slip on hard hats and wave union signs when asking for votes — all while the region’s defining jobs disappear.

President Joe Biden, for example, billed himself as the most union-friendly commander in chief in history. In 2023, he walked a union picket line with autoworkers, the first president in history to participate in strike activity. But Benson said he saw the action as disingenuous.

“Coming to a strike line and acting like you’re rah rah rah putting your sign up on a UAW sticker,” Benson scoffed. “Those people came for a cameo.”

Several Trump supporters interviewed said they see more strategy than chaos and believe the threat of high tariffs may be a ploy for leverage over other countries.

They point to Trump’s pause of the tariffs on Mexico and Canada after announcing that the countries had made U.S.-friendly concessions. Those countries and others, they say, don’t want to face higher hurdles to reach U.S. consumers, and that leverage can be used to extract favorable policies on everything from immigration to fentanyl.

“I don’t really mind having to pay 10 percent more for some Chinese trinket. Is that too big of a price to pay to have a safe world?” said Chris Vitale, 52, who retired as an autoworker for Chrysler, then Stellantis. He voted for Barack Obama in 2008 but voted for Trump three times. “I’m not looking to sell my children and grandchildren out so that I can save $300 on a flat-screen [TV] or a car. It’s more unpredictable because the resolution isn’t easily identifiable. But I am still okay with it.”

But the volatility can be a hard sell for people in Michigan not already in Trump’s camp, who have a hard time seeing their Canadian neighbors as part of a hostile borderland, riddled with drug dealers and human smuggling — as opposed to partners in an amicable and mutually beneficial trade relationship.

Nearly $46 billion in goods transfer between Michigan and the Canadian province of Ontario, which has been a key border crossing since the Civil War. The border cities of Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, share a yearly Independence Day celebration on the river that separates them. Several bridges and tunnels span the Detroit River, well-trafficked by transport trucks. Another bridge, meant to make commercial traffic more efficient between the two countries, is slated to open this year.

The bridge is named after Gordie Howe, a Canadian-born hockey player who spent a quarter-century with the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings — another sign of the connection between the two countries.

Trump’s tariff policies threaten those relationships — and the jobs that depend on them — for relatively little gain, said Michael Howard, a Macomb County commissioner who owns a furniture-making business.

He buys screws by the bucketful and worries that a 25 percent tariff on key supplies will cripple his business. He’s spoken with constituents and friends who are bracing for Trump’s tariffs in large and small ways — cutting back bonuses, freezing hiring and even opting to save their tax refunds instead of spending them.

Taylor, the Sterling Heights mayor, said he’s spoken with few people who are willing to leave their entrenched positions, even as the region faces severe repercussions. Sterling Heights has been a purple city in a purple state for decades, the home of the “Reagan Democrat,” but has become increasingly Trump-leaning. Still, he fears that his region will take an economic hit as Trump uses tariffs to advance a wide range of policies.

“I can understand that the southern border and immigration policy is a major part of Trump’s platform, and it’s something that I think a lot of Sterling Heights voters and citizens elected him to try to resolve in one way or the other,” he said. “But at the cost that it will have for our local economy, I think it would just be staggering.”