the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jun 23, 2025
Donald Trump recently imposed 50% tariffs on foreign steel. Trump justified these tariffs by claiming that a flood of cheap imported steel had destroyed the U.S. steel industry and workers’ jobs.
U.S. union officials and politicians like Bernie Sanders say the same thing.
In fact, nothing can be further from the truth. U.S. steel mills still produce three-quarters of the steel used domestically. It is a major and technologically advanced producer of high strength steels and certain specialty grades. The U.S. is also one of the biggest exporters of steel in the world.
No, imported steel didn’t destroy U.S. steel workers’ jobs. The steel companies operating in the U.S. did. Today one steel worker produces as much steel as 10 steel workers produced in the 1970s. The main reason for this is that the way steel is produced has changed dramatically. Old integrated steel mills have been replaced by mini mills that use electric arc furnaces. In response, the steel companies didn’t just slash jobs, they abandoned the industrial heartland in the Midwest, laying waste to its economy and population, and then opened up new steel mills in different regions of the country, usually the South.
This is not the first time that Trump introduced tariffs on steel, claiming that they would bring steel worker jobs back to the U.S. He introduced tariffs on steel in 2018, during his first term. And when Biden became president, he kept those tariffs. But after the tariffs were imposed all that happened was that the steel companies operating in the U.S. raised their prices. For them, big tariff increases were an opportunity to greatly increase their profits, a profit bonanza.
There was no increase in steel production or steel jobs. But a year later, 75,000 manufacturing jobs had been lost. Steel is an intermediate product used in the production of other things, and the price increase in steel caused a drop in demand and cutbacks in production and jobs.
Those tariffs were not aimed at protecting jobs or bringing jobs back, as Trump says. They were aimed at increasing the profits and wealth of the U.S. capitalist class in a worsening and more violent trade war. In these trade wars it is the workers in the U.S. and the rest of the world who pay the price through much higher prices, greater unemployment and more cuts in government programs and services in the immediate future. Not to speak of sacrificing their lives and the lives of their children when trade wars lead to real shooting wars.