Minnesota steel makers who lost their jobs under President Joe Biden are trusting that President Donald Trump's tariffs will rebalance global trade and restore greatness to the American steel industry – not to mention restoring their jobs.
Economic decline during the Biden administration lessened demand for steel, leading to the Iron Range of Minnesota parent Cleveland-Cliffs to report a $483 million loss and lay off workers, The New York Times reported Sunday.
Despite the somber reality and the burgeoning trade war on steel, laid-off workers are behind Trump's 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports as a way to repatriate jobs in the metals industry, particularly with regard to the cheap Chinese steel that has been spread around the globe with impunity under Biden.
"America imports a bunch of stuff from everyone because we just don’t have everything, but maybe we should stop trying to get things that we already have from everywhere else and just do it here, you know?" laid-off U.S. steelworkers' union member Jon Bird, 33, told the Times.
Despite some economists criticizing Trump's tariffs as harmful, Cleveland-Cliffs shares the worker's faith in Trump.
"We firmly believe that the Trump administration is spot-on in its push to bring back manufacturing to the United States," CEO Lourenco Goncalves said on Cleveland-Cliffs' May 8 earnings call. "And we know that in the long-run, this will be good for the American steel industry and for Cleveland-Cliffs."
Bird is ready to "hunker down" on unemployment and the union benefits in the meantime, but is ready for a permanent career change if demand does not return and get him a job again.
"You're faced with the decision of 'I might have to leave,'" Bird told the Times. "You know, at our union meetings, they told us the harsh reality of, 'You might not see some of these people ever again.'"
The problem is, Bird's steelworkers' union job pays very well, anywhere from $112,000 to $125,000 a year with overtime, according to the Times. That is in St. Louis County, where the per capita income is just $39,778 and the typical maintenance and repair job is typically $61,140.
Another Trump-promoted initiative to reload American shipbuilding gives the U.S. steel industry some hope for revival.
"I'm biased as a miner, but I think that'd be a great idea," Bird told the Times.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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