President Trump’s tariffs on imported steel and aluminum have led to higher wages for nearly 2,000 United Steelworkers (USW) in Michigan and Minnesota.
In a new four-year contract between the steelworkers union and Cleveland Cliffs, a mining company, about 1,850 American workers have secured wage increases in each year of the contract, a signing bonus, affordable health care benefits, and a higher quality of retirement benefits for the workers.
“In 2015, these workers saw that the industry was struggling and agreed to make sacrifices so that this company could make it through the tough times,” USW International President Leo W. Gerard said in a statement. “Cliffs clearly recognized that, and we look forward to building on our relationship in the coming years.”
The 1,850 American steelworkers who are set to see wage increases are based in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan’s Tilden and Empire mines and the United Taconite and Hibbing Taconite mines in Iron Range, Minnesota.
The wage increases were only made possible as the iron, steel, and overall metals industry has seen a boom after President Trump enacted a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a ten percent tariff on aluminum.
Cleveland Cliffs executives are so supportive of Trump’s tariffs on imported products that they have launched an ad campaign talking up the benefits the economic nationalist agenda has brought for American workers and the metal industry.
Iron Range, Minnesota — which was devastated by multinational free trade deals — has been revitalized by the Trump tariffs. A local report this month noted how small businesses in Iron Range are seeing employment booms and a growing economy thanks to the strong production of the iron mines in the region.
Republican Pete Stauber, a former professional hockey player, is running for Congress in the area and has praised the Trump tariffs, crediting them for rebuilding a community that was once on the downturn.
“President Trump is keeping his promises that he made on the campaign trail,” Stauber told the New York Times. “He talked about leveling the playing field for the American worker. He did that with the tariffs.”
As Breitbart News most recently reported, Trump’s tariffs on imported goods are not costing U.S. jobs as free trade advocates had claimed for the last year. In fact, the Trump tariffs have created more than 11,000 American jobs in the economy in the last six months, according to research by the Coalition for a Prosperous America.
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