Another “win” for the tariffs… Good luck blaming this one on Biden!
WEIRTON, W.Va. (WTRF) — The future of the proposed transformer manufacturing facility in Weirton is facing uncertainty after union leaders learned that the project is facing major challenges.
Earlier this week, union leaders with the United Steelworkers say they met with company officials with Cleveland-Cliffs to talk about plans for the transformer facility in Weirton.
What they thought was going to be a meeting to discuss bringing back workers to the idle mill turned into unexpected news of an indefinite delay for the project.
United Steelworkers staff representative John Saunders says the reason for the pause in plans is because of financial issues and the uncertainty surrounding tariffs.
He says the change in plans leaves a lot of questions about what’s next.
It was unexpected and devastating; we thought we had the potential to bring back 600 people at Weirton over a period of time, and then we find out it’s indefinitely delayed, so that’s a really tough setback.”
John Saunders – District 1, Staff Representative for United Steelworkers The decision coincided with Cleveland-Cliffs’ release of its first-quarter 2025 results, in which the company announced it would no longer deploy capital toward the Weirton transformer plant.
Ohhh maybe they need steel from one of their plants outside USA?
Projects will have a budget that will have an expected return on investment (ROI) over a fixed period of time for private sector. Public projects raise a bond, and you can’t exceed the bond.
Raise steel 10-25% and you can blow past the budget window, because steel construction parts go up to match. Create uncertainty about the future market, and your ROI calculation is toast.
It frustrates me when people say “well just buy american steel,” as if people were not already buying american steel as well as foreign. Now there’s not enough steel so prices go up. There’s no strategic pile of steel reserve. If a store normally sells 100 apples a day and suddenly there are 76, would you say “just buy american apples” when the price went up and there were shortages?