At a sprawling steel mill on the outskirts of Philadelphia, the workers have one number in mind; and it’s not how many tons of steel produced every day, or how many hours they work. It’s where each of them falls on the plant’s seniority list.
ArcelorMittal, which owns the mill, announced in the fall that it would lay off 150 of the plant’s 207 workers in 2018. While the cuts will start with the most junior employees, they will go so deep that even workers with twenty years of experience will be unemployed and without health insurance unless they can afford COBRA or Obamacare.
Chinese products are driving down the global price of metal to a price where American steel producers simply cannot compete unless they install robots instead of workers. The layoffs have demoralized these same steelworkers who cheered President Trump’s election as a saving grace for their industry. Trump swore to build roads and bridges, strengthen “Buy America” requirements, and protect factories from unfair imports—especially steel.
A year later, Trump has not even mentioned these policies. Trump and his daughter Ivanka still make their own products overseas. And when it comes to steel, his failure to follow through on his promise has actually done more harm than good.
Foreign steel makers actually raced to fill the void, hoping to beat Trump’s promised tariffs were to start. According to the American Iron and Steel Institute, which tracks shipments, steel imports were actually 19.4 percent higher in the first 10 months of Trump’s presidency than in the same period in 2016.
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