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"Mommy's going to lose her job." Trump abandons US steelworkers just before Christmas

Add American steelworkers to the list of voting groups who are now realizing they were scammed by Donald Trump and his empty campaign promises. Spending most of 2016 railing against existing U.S. trade deals and promising to vitalize manufacturing jobs in America, Trump made explicit pleas to blue-collar employees, such as steelworkers, who cheered Trump’s […]

By Eric Boehlert - December 22, 2017
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Donald Trump

Spending most of 2016 railing against existing U.S. trade deals and promising to vitalize manufacturing jobs in America, Trump made explicit pleas to blue-collar employees, such as steelworkers, who cheered Trump’s “America first” rhetoric.

And on Election Day, it worked.  Especially in Rust Belt states.

But since then, Trump has followed through with none of his promises, and now more steelworker layoffs are coming.

“I told my son, ‘Christmas is going to be kind of scarce, because mommy’s going to lose her job soon,'” steelworker Kimberly Allen tells the New York Times.

Added co-worker Eric Smith, “It is sad that Christmas time is coming around. You don’t want to splurge for your kids like you want to, because the plant may be closing.”

Both Allen and Smith work at a steel mill in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, which is laying off 150 of its 207 employees.

“The layoffs have stunned these steelworkers who, just a year ago, greeted President Trump’s election as a new dawn for their industry,” the Time reports, noting the candidate pledge to build more bridges and curtail unfair imports. “But after a year in office, Mr. Trump has not enacted these policies. And when it comes to steel, his failure to follow through on a promise has actually done more harm than good.”

Instead of helping the blue-collar steelworkers, Trump’s giving huge tax cuts to the companies that are laying off blue-collar steelworkers.

They’re not on the only ones abandoned by Trump and his boastful promises. Last December, he and his team made a loud public display about how Trump was personally going to save 1,000 jobs at a Carrier plant in Indiana from being shipped off to Mexico.

But despite the $7 million bribe to Carrier in the form of tax cuts, orchestrated by then-Gov. Mike Pence, Carrier has been announcing layoffs all year.

Additionally, under Trump nearly 100,000 jobs have been shipped overseas.

To date, and despite his 2016 pledges, Trump has refused to move against the flood of cheap, imported steel from China. (As a developer, Trump has long preferred using steel from China.)

In June, the White House signaled it was going to protect U.S. steelmakers by making good on Trump’s endless campaign pledges to construct new tariffs to target the Chinese. “Wait till you see what I’m going to do for steel and your steel companies,” Trump bragged at the time.

In August, Trump was poised to launch an investigation into China’s illegal practice of flooding global market with cheap steel. But then the White House abruptly canceled the announcement, and Trump went on a two-week day vacation.

Steel imports increased 19 percent during the first 10 months of 2017, compared to the same period last year, according to the According to the American Iron and Steel Institute.

Meanwhile, Trump and Republicans have refused to invest in American infrastructure spending projects, such as bridges, which translates into less business for American companies.

“The president’s own words and lack of action have actually put the industry in a worse position than if he had done nothing at all,” complains Scott Paul, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.

Trump lies about everything and to everyone. And that includes U.S. steelworkers. 


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