Longshore Worker Rick Anderson ‘worries it will translate into layoffs for workers in the West,’ reported NPR.
From a broadcast titled ‘On The West Coast, Ports Brace For Steel Tariffs’ on National Public Radio:
“Steel is tied to about a third of our revenue. So that’s pretty substantial,” says Abbi Russell, communications manager for the Port of Vancouver in Washington state, the second-largest importer of steel products on the West Coast. In 2017, the port unloaded 712,834 metric tons of steel. making it the second-largest importer of steel products on the entire West Coast.
The Port of Vancouver and manufacturers in the Northwest and along the West Coast are closely monitoring a 25 percent tariff President Trump recently placed on imported steel.
“None of us make our own steel so we’re totally reliant on raw materials coming in,” says Scott Cooley, the vice president of sales and customer service for Steelscape, a steel coating plant with facilities in southern California and Kalama, Wash.
Forklift driver Rick Anderson has worked at the Port of Vancouver for more than two decades. He says for the past three weeks, all he has hauled is steel. And while he understands the benefits to the steel industry in Rust Belt states, he worries it will translate into layoffs for workers in the West.
“We’re all about putting Americans to work. We’d love to export more than we import,” says Anderson. “But the problem is it’s just not going to work here in the Northwest where we don’t have a supply of steel.”
Anderson says that a lot of his colleagues have been on edge since the president announced the tariffs.
Listen below: