By Nick Carey
"This is not what I voted for. I voted for Trump because Ithought he'd straighten things out, not do something like this,"said Lang, 59, a third-generation steelworker, whose son alsoworks at the same steel mill in
The county voted for then-Republican candidate Trump by morethan 24 points in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. SomeRepublican strategists said Trump's tariffs appeared partly tobe timed to sway voters in
Trump is scheduled to visit
America is the world's largest steel importer, buying about35 million tons in 2017. GRAPHIC: http://tmsnrt.rs/2oPeo1z
But Lang is one of around 780 workers at the NovolipetskSteel PAO (NLMK) mill, NLMK's
Bob Miller, Chief Executive Officer of NLMK's
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Miller said tariffs will also force NLMK to shelve planned
Trump has stood by the tariffs, despite resistance from hisfellow Republicans and other countries, which have vowed torespond with levies of their own. On Thursday, Trump pressedahead with the imposition of 25 percent tariffs on steel importsand 10 percent for aluminum.
Some steel executives such as Miller say this is theultimate irony: by acting ostensibly to protect
"The workers here in
The tariffs are good for steel producers that melt andproduce their own steel. But for those like NLMK, which isreliant on imported raw materials, they could provecatastrophic.
The mill is the largest employer in
The area was America's steel heartland, with mills dottingthe landscape until the industry's decline began in the 1970sbecause of an increase in global competition. The mill owned byNLMK has existed since the beginning of the 20th century, butexperienced two lengthy shutdowns and mass layoffs in the 1990s.
Its blast furnace was sold for scrap and instead ofproducing steel, its current crop of workers heat 25-tonimported steel slabs to a glowing-orange temperature of 2,400degrees fahrenheit (1,316 celsius) before rolling them down insome cases to as thick as a few sheets of paper.
Amid blasts of steam, intense heat, dirt and noise, themill's 600 union-represented workers earn up to
Terry Day, local president for the United Steelworkersunion, said the 1990s shutdowns convulsed the community andresulted in a spate of suicides and divorces.
"This time it will be much worse," said Day, 53, whoexperienced both shutdowns. "Back then there were other jobs togo to, but now there's nothing else here."
"It would be devastating."
Steel customers ranging from automakers General Motors Co- which makes its Cruze sedan in
But likely job losses within the steel industry run counterto Trump's professed aims of bringing back manufacturing jobs.
"There is a substantial number of people in the steelindustry that could lose their jobs as a result of tariffs,"said metal analyst Charles Bradford of Bradford Research.
The town's population of under 5,000 is less than a third ofwhat it was in 1920. As of June 2017, there were around 11,000steel jobs in
The
Miller is working to lobby the Trump administration tofollow the precedent of former Republican President George W.Bush's administration, which allowed quotas for slab steel in2002 rather than applying tariffs as it did for products thatwere domestically produced.
Those quotas allowed the
The mood in
(Reporting by Nick Carey; additional reporting by JessicaResnick-Ault; editing by Grant McCool)