WATCH: Biden ‘very much engaged’ in auto negotiations, economic advisor says

President Joe Biden is participating in labor negotiations between the United Auto Workers and auto manufacturers General Motors, Ford and Stellantis as the possibility of a strike looms if tentative contact agreements aren’t reached by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, the chair of his Council of Economic Advisers, Jared Bernstein, said during a White House press briefing on Wednesday.

“The president’s been very much engaged,” Bernstein said of the auto negotiations.

Watch Jared Bernstein’s remarks in the player above.

Bernstein did not answer questions about whether the president would support striking workers or whether he might step in to try and head off a strike. He cited Biden’s record of backing unions and collective bargaining.

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A strike could reshape the political landscape in the battleground state of Michigan and potentially unleash economic shockwaves nationwide.

The auto industry accounts for about 3% of the nation’s gross domestic product and though union leaders say they are mulling strikes at a small number of factories run by those automakers, as many as 146,000 workers could eventually walk off their jobs. The effects would be most immediate in Michigan and other auto job-heavy states such as Ohio and Indiana. But a prolonged strike could trigger car shortages and layoffs in auto-supply industries and other sectors.

Union support was instrumental in helping Biden overcome a slow start to clinch the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and it helped him win not just Michigan but Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as he defeated Trump in that year’s general election.

Underscoring his commitment to organized labor, Biden’s lone campaign rally since launching his reelection bid in April came in June in Philadelphia, when more than a dozen of the country’s largest and most powerful unions endorsed Biden for a second term.