Will the president talk about the steel investigation in the industrial heartland?
The Trump administration continues to weigh a Section 232 investigation into steel imports. The Alliance for American Manufacturing continues to support a strong action as a result of this investigation. Looks like some steel industry executives are weighing in, too.
John Ferriola, CEO of Nucor, spoke in support of the investigation to CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Monday:
There's no doubt we're in a trade war. We are losing that trade war. It is time to take action to support the American industry and the American people. And beyond just the steel industry, we're talking manufacturing as a whole.
Look, man: This is starting to get some traction.
1. Thousands of voters have urged the president, in the name of national security, to shore up a steel (and aluminum) industry beset by unfairly traded imports. You can too.
2. A bipartisan cross-section of elected officials in Minnesota have come out in support of the investigation. “I compliment the president for taking strong action to protect our domestic steel industry from foreign dumping,” Gov. Mark Dayton (D) told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “What will benefit the domestic steel industry — which I strongly support — may have other repercussions for the other trade issues, affecting other industries or other products. [We’ll] have to look at the details of what it is he’s proposing.”
3. And, as President Trump prepares to speak at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio tonight, workers there are getting restless. Some of them are urging the president to back legislation offered by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) that would greatly expand the reach of Buy America rules attached to federal spending.
Just because the president is speaking in Youngstown doesn’t mean he’ll speak to manufacturing issues (just ask the organizers of the Boy Scouts' National Jamboree if they expected the remarks they got last night), but northeast Ohio is a manufacturing-intensive area; it stands to reason he’d weigh in with an update on the Section 232 investigation’s progress.
We hope to hear one, because American steelworkers have earned this president’s support. Will he give it to them?