Study: Trump's Aluminum Tariffs to Create Thousands of American Jobs

President Trump’s ten percent tariffs on imported aluminum have brought the domestic aluminum industry and American jobs roaring back in the economy, new research reveals.

Research by the Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) Robert E. Scott finds that since Trump implemented the aluminum import tariffs, primary aluminum producers are on track to create 1,075 American jobs and downstream producers are to create more than 2,000 jobs in the industry.

During years of lawmakers protecting the free trade status quo, between 2010 and 2017, a total of 18 of 23 aluminum smelters in the U.S. were closed, Scott notes. This eliminated 13,000 high-paying jobs in the industry.

By 2016, only three aluminum refineries supplied U.S. smelters. Just a year later, all but one of those aluminum refiners had closed.

This downward trend of the American aluminum industry has started to reverse thanks to tariffs implemented by Trump’s Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in March 2018, Scott writes:

U.S. primary aluminum production is projected to increase by 67 percent (500,000 tons per year) between 2017 and the end of 2018. Three smelters are being restarted, and another has announced a capacity expansion. Seven smelters in total will be in operation by the end of 2018. These restart and expansion projects will create over 1,000 new jobs and generate over $100 million in new investment. [Emphasis added]

Since Section 232 tariffs were imposed, 22 new and expansion projects have been announced in downstream aluminum industries producing extruded (rod and bar, pipe and tube, and extruded shapes) and rolled (sheet and plate) products. These new and expanded facilities will employ over 2,000 additional workers, generate $3.3 billion in new investments, and add nearly 1,000,000 tons of annual rolling and extrusion capacity to the downstream, domestic aluminum industry. [Emphasis added]

All of the aluminum industry data is compiled by Scott, here:

In March 2016, New Madrid, Missouri’s Noranda Aluminum plant closed after filing for bankruptcy, putting 900 Americans out of work. Soon after Trump’s aluminum tariffs were announced, a new aluminum smelter was announced, the Magnitude 7 Metals plant. This new smelter, alone, is set to create about 450 American jobs.

Similarly, the aluminum tariffs have produced large gains for American workers in downstream production. For example, in Ashland, Kentucky, a new aluminum mill is set to open by 2020, creating about 600 high-paying American jobs.

The new aluminum mill is a fresh start and much needed for the small community of Ashland. In 2016, during the Obama administration, AK Steel laid off 633 American steelworkers who were forced to claim unemployment.

Scott also calculated the actual jobs gained or lost in the U.S. manufacturing and services industries between February and October 2018, debunking two studies by the pro-free trade Trade Partnership.

For instance, the Trade Partnership studies claimed that 20,000 American manufacturing jobs would be eliminated from the economy due to Trump’s tariffs and trade retaliation. Instead, at least 176,000 American manufacturing jobs have been created since the implementation of the tariffs.

In the services industries, the Trade Partnership studies claimed Trump’s tariffs and the subsequent trade retaliation would eliminate more than 520,000 U.S. jobs. Instead, more than 1.4 million service industry jobs in the U.S. economy have been created since the tariffs were implemented.

Likewise, Trump’s 25 percent tariff on steel imports has been a boon to American steelworkers. As Breitbart News reported, there have been about 11,100 U.S. jobs created due to Trump’s protective tariffs.

On the other hand, there have been about 514 job losses directly tied to the tariffs. There are 20 times as many American jobs that have been created in the last six months thanks to Trump’s tariffs on imported foreign goods than jobs that have been lost.

Free trade between the U.S. and China eliminated at least 3.4 jobs for Americans in all 50 states and every congressional district between 2001 and 2017.

The vast majority of those jobs lost from free trade with China has been in the U.S. manufacturing sector, making up 74.4 percent of all jobs lost and amounting to 2.5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs lost since 2001.