Donald Trump’s Use of Foreign Steel Undercuts a Major Campaign Theme
PITTSBURGH— Donald Trump has made revitalizing manufacturing—specifically the U.S. steel industry—a core part of his pitch to voters in Rust Belt swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. “We are going to put American-produced steel back into the backbone of our country,” he said at one speech at a scrap-metal plant near Pittsburgh. “This alone will create massive numbers of jobs.”
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Mr. Trump’s call for using U.S.-made steel is a central plank of his “America First” pitch to rebuild domestic manufacturing by cracking down on what he describes as unfair trading deals and cheap imports. His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, has also criticized trade deals and called for protecting U.S. manufacturing.
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Todd Leany, who helped build a prime Trump property in Las Vegas, can attest to the attractiveness of foreign steel. In 2006, the president of Next Century Rebar in Las Vegas was filling out orders for building Trump International Hotel in that city and bought half the 15,000 tons he needed from Turkey and Germany. Like most builders, the tower’s contractors didn’t care where the materials came from, he said. Nor were there guidelines to buy American.
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Mr. Trump has repeatedly emphasized, in campaign events and during debates, the need to bring back the American steel industry, portraying it as symbolic of a wider national revival. In the second presidential debate, he accused China of “dumping vast amounts of steel all over the U.S., which essentially is killing our steelworkers and steel companies.” Mrs. Clinton, who has also called for protecting U.S. manufacturing jobs, responded by saying: “China is illegally dumping steel in the U.S., and Donald Trump is buying it to build his buildings, putting steelworkers and American steel plants out of business.”
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Still, an array of contractors for Trump projects as well as steel, trade and union officials couldn’t recall explicit promptings from the company to use American steel. That is a big reason the United Steelworkers, which represents 850,000 workers in steel, aluminum, paper, glass, rubber and other industries, has revved up efforts to defeat Mr. Trump, said Mr. Gerard. Last month, it launched a campaign to turn union workers away from the Republican nominee.
USW leaders had initially been willing to listen to Mr. Trump, because of his tough talk on trade, but their opposition hardened in part because of his businesses’ reliance on foreign-made goods. The union said it sent officers into Trump hotels to examine interior décor and found it was all imported. It has started distributing anti-Trump leaflets throughout factories across the country.
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trumps-use-of-foreign-steel-undercuts-a-major-campaign-theme-1476470493
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