‘i Influenced That’: A Steel Ceo Takes A Bow For Trump’s Tariffs

CLEVELAND — President Donald Trump has won over one of the steel industry’s most prominent voices — despite reneging on a promise to block the foreign sale of a domestic competitor.

Steelmakers have long wooed Democrats and Republicans eager to boost their bonafides with an industry that once symbolized the might of American manufacturing and hard-hat voters. Now Lourenco Goncalves, the CEO of Ohio-based steel manufacturer Cleveland-Cliffs, credits Trump’s sky-high new tariffs on steel and aluminum as a potential boon for his industry.

“I believe what Trump’s trying to do is for the betterment of the country,” said Goncalves, sitting in his sprawling office overlooking Lake Erie.

Goncalves’ shelves are lined with pictures with politicians who have made the pilgrimage to Cleveland. The Biden administration put the company at the center of its pitch for climate-friendly steelmaking — a push that unraveled this year. And last year, he predicted the future would be “bright” if Vice President Kamala Harris had won the presidential election. But Goncalves also praised Trump as both parties campaigned on raising tariffs to protect manufacturing.

During the 2024 election, Trump and both Democratic presidential candidates tried to win the backing of the domestic steel industry and its workers by promising to block the sale of Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel to a Japanese company, Nippon Steel. The sale was strongly opposed by the U.S. Steelworkers labor union, which backed a rival bid by Goncalves’ Cleveland-Cliffs.

Biden followed through on that promise shortly before leaving office. But after talks with Nippon in the spring, Trump announced he would approve the sale. In exchange, Nippon agreed to give the administration a golden share — a mechanism that grants the federal government veto power over decisions to close plants, among other changes, a rare step in exerting presidential control over a private business.

Goncalves does not hold the flip-flop against Trump.

“I like to control my own destiny,” Goncalves said. “I doubt that I would be able to shut down plants if I had a golden share over my head. I make the decisions here. Myself and my board. I don't think a golden share will give U.S. Steel an advantage. That's the bottom line.”

Cleveland-Cliffs’ prospects have been boosted by Trump’s efforts to protect a struggling U.S. steel industry which has bled jobs over the past 50 years amid competition from China and other countries. The fallout in communities across the Midwest and Appalachia has helped swing the political consensus in both parties away from free trade and towards more protectionist policies, like tariffs, aimed at blocking cheap foreign products and lifting domestic producers.

In 2024, Cliffs lost $708 million. And in the first quarter of 2025, it announced the full and partial idling of six mills across several states.

Trump’s universal 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum products, announced in February, improved the industry’s outlook. The president then doubled it to 50 percent in June. Goncalves said those tariffs are already beginning to have a positive impact on his company’s business. And he is taking some credit for the reversal in U.S. manufacturing policy.

“I have been fighting for this for almost 30 years,” Goncalves said. “I am very happy with 50 percent. And without giving any details, I have my fingerprints on that 50 percent. In other words, I influenced that.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. But U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Friday touted the administration's efforts to reduce the flow of cheap foreign steel into the country.

"The United States has taken effective actions to address excess capacity in the U.S. market, including actions on direct and indirect steel imports from countries with overcapacity," Greer said in videotaped remarks to members of the Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity. “However, China's exports continue to displace steel producers globally, resulting in trade diversion to the U.S. market and lost export opportunities for our manufacturers."

Where the pharmaceutical companies, automakers and other industries have pushed back at the Trump administration’s tariffs, the steel industry and its workers have been cheering it along. That reaction is a sign that Trump's trade agenda is winning fans in at least some parts of the Rust Belt — a region that has been a critical factor in Trump’s coalition since 2016, when he accepted the Republican nomination for president in Cleveland with a pledge to bring back manufacturing jobs and end one-sided trade deals.

Heading into the 2026 midterms, Trump’s ability to make good on that promise, and to sell his larger economic argument, could be a central factor in his ability to maintain control in Washington. Ohio, where former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is launching a comeback bid against freshman Republican Sen. John Husted, is among the states that will determine which party controls the Senate for the second half of Trump’s term.

Husted has a nuanced view of the tariffs. In an interview at the Capitol this week, he said that while the duties have benefited steel and aluminum companies, giving them the security to make larger capital investments, he’s concerned about their effects on the economy as a whole — as industries that buy steel are struggling with a slower economy and higher costs on a range of inputs.

“For [the steel industry] it’s great and they’re investing a lot,” Husted said. “The other side of it is, can they make sure the prices of these are reasonable for the end users?”

Democrats are already hammering Trump’s tariffs for increasing the price of everything from Nike sneakers to coffee. And an April poll of Ohio voters conducted by Bowling Green State University shows they have doubts as well: just 25 percent believed Trump’s tariff policies would help them personally, and 38 percent believed they would help the U.S., more generally.

“I don’t think that anyone is buying that this is going to save our county, or our economy, or our country. I don’t hear that at all,” said David Brock, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Cuyahoga County, which encompasses Cleveland and its suburbs. “The average voter isn’t affected by manufacturing, necessarily, but they are affected by costs.”

Brock also said there’s no evidence that the steel tariffs are actually helping turn U.S. manufacturing around.

The sector has seen seven straight months of decreased economic activity, according to the Institute for Supply Management, a nonprofit group that produces monthly reports on several economic sectors. It’s part of a larger skid in 33 of the past 35 months. Manufacturing jobs, too, have been steadily sliding for more than two-and-a-half years.

Goncalves acknowledged the challenges of bringing back manufacturing. He closed two plants in Pennsylvania that he said he’d been propping up in anticipation of acquiring U.S. Steel earlier this year, and has several plants that still aren’t producing at maximum capacity. But he predicted things would start to turn around in automotive manufacturing — a major sector for Cliffs — by the beginning of 2026.

“President Trump is trying to bring this back,” Goncalves said. “It’s a monumental task, but we’re gonna fight. We’re going to try to do it. And I believe we are being very successful.”