During a Monday morning interview on Fox & Friends, many steelworkers from Pittsburgh credit former President Trump’s steel tariffs for “saving” jobs and the industry.
Former President Trump imposed tariffs in 2018 on steel arriving into the United States from other countries in an effort to encourage domestic steel production and create more high paying jobs. Brian Pavlack told Fox & Friends that the tariffs “worked.”
“I was glad I got my members up there and they got to see him,” Pavlack said. “It’s like, all about my members to me, you know, meet Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump kind of saved all of our jobs with those tariffs.”
WATCH:
In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, Trump has tried to get his message across to all union workers that the Republican party truly is the the party of the worker. With so much pushback from union members, the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) and International Brotherhood of Teamsters unions decided not to endorse the typical Democrat candidate and instead remain neutral, basically giving the green-light to it’s members to vote for Trump.
“I’m curious. Typically, union workers in your industry, we know them to endorse Democrats. Why Donald Trump this go around?” Lawrence Jones of Fox & Friends questioned Glenn Thomas, a steelworker from Pittsburgh.
“Historically, we’ve all been Democrats,” Thomas said. “A couple of us up here are third-generation steelworkers, and uh, we had a trade case that our ex-international president Tom Conway was fighting the Chinese for illegal dumping, and when President Trump stepped in and he imposed those tariffs on the Chinese, I firmly believe he saved the steel industry, not only in our country but in Mon Valley, where many of us have lived for close to 30 years.”
According to another steelworker, Andy Macey, his reasoning for supporting Trump for president was the 1980’s mill closures that he doesn’t want to see happen again.
“I’m a third-generation steelworker. I have been through those layoffs. It’s not fun. I’ve seen three mills shut down in the valley in the 80s. We have three mills left in the valley. I don’t want to see those shut down. And he made a firm commitment when I asked him with a handshake, ‘Mr. President, after the election, will you do what can you to keep our Mon Valley viable in the steel industry?’ He gripped my hand and confirmed to me through that handshake that he says, ‘I will do that.’”
“It was one of the first things he did when he got into the presidency is to put those tariffs on,” Macey reiterated. “They worked.”