The economically insecure rubes who are voting for Trump will never figure this out:
Plenty of blue-collar workers believe that, as president, Donald Trump would be ready to fight off U.S. trade adversaries and reinvigorate the country’s manufacturing industries through his commitment to the Rust Belt. What they likely don’t know is that Trump has been stiffing American steel workers on his own construction projects for years, choosing to deprive untold millions of dollars from four key electoral swing states and instead directing it to China—the country whose trade practices have helped decimate the once-powerful industrial center of the United States.
A Newsweek investigation has found that in at least two of Trump’s last three construction projects, Trump opted to purchase his steel and aluminum from Chinese manufacturers rather than United States corporations based in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. In other instances, he abandoned steel altogether, instead choosing the far-less-expensive option of buying concrete from various companies, including some linked to the Luchese and Genovese crime families. Trump has never been accused of engaging in any wrongdoing for his business dealings with those companies, but it’s true that the Mafia has long controlled much of the concrete industry in New York.
***When Americans like Trump purchase their steel through Ossen, they are providing financial benefits to an array of Chinese companies and even the government. For example, Ossen corporate records show Chinese banks provide all of its short-term financing in the form of loans that almost all mature after one year, and then are replaced by new loans; most Chinese banks are arms of the state, tightly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, and provide financing to companies that are competitors to American manufacturers in other industries. (For example, the Chinese companies that manufacture suits and ties for the Donald Trump Signature Collection also obtain loans from mainland banks; Trump has said he has been forced to use the Chinese for his clothing lines because no American company makes those kinds of products anymore. That is not true—for example, all Brooks Brothers ties are made in New York, while about 85% of the company’s suits are made in Massachusetts.)
Another recent Trump building that has used metal from China is Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, which opened in 2009. For that project, Trump obtained loans from Deutsche Bank and three hedge funds that in turn used financing from George Soros, the business magnate who is the subject of many conservative conspiracy theories and is portrayed as a threat to the Republican Party.
The building required tons of aluminum and Trump elected not to purchase the metal from Alcoa or any other similar American producer, but instead turn to a subsidiary of a Chinese aluminum manufacturer. Because American businesses have been turning to cheaper aluminum from overseas, the industry is collapsing. For example, in just the last two years, more than half of the country’s aluminum smelters in states like Ohio, West Virginia and Texas have closed as a result of being undercut on price by competition from overseas.
It’s the same long con Republicans and some Dems in WV have been running on the coal miners here fort decades. Just scream “BRING OUR COAL JOBS BACK” loud enough and no one will pay attention to what they are actually doing.