President Donald Trump specialized in shattering conventional wisdom and challenging the status quo on his road to the White House in 2016. To this day, our president believes Americans are getting ripped off by unfair trade practices where country after country has gotten comfortable taking advantage of the United States due to our unparalleled generosity and wealth. So, he’s focused like a laser beam on fair trade and leveling the playing field so our manufacturing workers can compete with foreign competitors and prosper. President Trump has declared that by implementing targeted tariffs on foreign countries that hurt American workers, “our country will be extremely liquid and rich again.”
Having served as President Trump’s deputy campaign manager in 2016 and as an advisor to his campaigns in 2020 and 2024, I was delighted to see him reelected in 2024 with a huge mandate to fight for our manufacturing sector and usher in a “Golden Age” in America. Make no mistake, our 45th and 47th president is determined to finish the revolution on American trade policy that he began by fixing the mistakes of the Biden-Harris years and strengthening Section 232 tariffs on aluminum and steel.
As part of the shock-and-awe action of his first one hundred days in office, President Trump signed new proclamations to bolster the fair-trade policy introduced during his historic first term in office. By elevating tariffs to 25% on aluminum and restoring the 25% levy on steel, the Trump administration is making clear that they have the backs of thousands of American aluminum and steel workers and are resolute in their mission to create a multitude of new manufacturing jobs.
While the globalists in the economic establishment and mainstream media react to targeted tariffs with their customary Trump-deranged hysteria, American manufacturers reacted with both joy and relief because President Trump is making good on another campaign promise. It must be repeated again and again – because the fake news media refuses to tell the truth – that this president supports robust trade, but it must be trade that is fair and reciprocal. This is the linchpin of the policy.
Under the “America Last” mindset of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, foreign countries were free to exploit loopholes in Section 232 to flood the domestic aluminum and steel industry with cheap products. Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Argentina locked arms with D.C. swamp creatures to secure exclusions and exemptions, to the detriment of American workers. Australia’s aluminum exports into the U.S. have increased sharply and at the same time China and Russia have used loopholes to move aluminum through Mexico and Canada to flood our market. As a result of foreign countries cheating, Alcoa announced the permanent closing of its smelter in Washington State. Other closures have included a Century Aluminum plant in Kentucky, which idled production in 2022, and Magnitude 7 Metals in Missouri, which was forced to close in 2024.
Hellbound and Down 