U.S. President Donald Trump paraded into office promising to bring jobs that had been transferred out of the country back into the United States. Now, as a direct result of his administration’s policies, a new stream of jobs out of the country is beginning.
Earlier this year, enraged at the amount of Chinese goods being sold in the United States, the Trump administration slapped a 25 percent import tax on imported steel and a 10 percent one on imported aluminum. The White House targeted other countries all around the world, too, including some close allies like Canada and Mexico.
The problem is that a number of companies with operations in the United States had grown to rely on imported goods that have now been slapped with tariffs. Three billion dollars worth of Chinese steel and aluminum has been affected, as have $34 billion worth of Chinese technology goods.
In the face of the subsequent price hikes, an Illinois manufacturer is moving its last remaining U.S. manufacturing operations to Mexico, the Chicago Tribune reports. On October 12, both Stack-On Products plants will close, leaving more than 150 people without work. The company has persisted in Illinois for some four decades.
The original decision came when tariffs were first announced. Fletcher made clear that the move is a direct result of Trump’s tariffs, explaining:
‘The operation is really not profitable… Mr. Trump is part of this.’
That’s darkly ironic considering just how many times Trump has touted his plans to bring jobs like those to be lost in Illinois back into the United States.
For instance, on January of this year, Trump wrote on Twitter:
‘During the campaign, I promised to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN by bringing businesses and jobs back to our country. I am very proud to see companies like Chrysler moving operations from Mexico to Michigan where there are so many great American workers!’
During the campaign, I promised to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN by bringing businesses and jobs back to our country. I am very proud to see companies like Chrysler moving operations from Mexico to Michigan where there are so many great American workers! https://t.co/hz2q9UTfnF
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2018
Trump’s promises and assertions just don’t translate to reality, though.
Even in the case of that specific tweet, Trump’s lying. No Chrysler operations were moving out of Mexico and into the United States at the time of his tweet. The company was simply bolstering their already in-place operations in the United States.
In the time since, Trump has made it more difficult for such bolstering to take place. BMW, which employs tens of thousands of people in the United States, has expressed concern about the future of those jobs in the face of Trump’s tariffs and the global retaliatory tariffs.
Whirlpool CEO Marc Bitzer exclaimed recently that global steel prices have reached “unexplainable levels.” On a smaller scale, American workers are suffering outside of the Stack-On situation too. Missouri’s Mid-Continent Nail Corporation is “on the brink of extinction” because of the tariffs, with hundreds of American workers out of the job.
Trump’s trade policies are not enacting an economic utopia, and yet, he’s continuing on with them anyway.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
