Will Trump Tariffs Help Steel in America’s Rust Belt?

President Donald Trump has been known to change policy positions on the fly. But throughout an often volatile political career, he’s held fast to the notion that Chinese policies have unduly wiped out U.S. jobs, often citing the steel industry as Exhibit A. His administration says cheap steel imports constitute a threat to national security and the U.S. needs to build a trade wall. Despite enraged responses from around the world, Trump seems determined to proceed with an across-the-board 25 percent tariff on steel.

U.S. steelmakers say their plants have been ravaged by global overproduction, particularly by China, and that’s depressed prices and created an urgent need for remedies. But Andrew Cosgrove, a senior analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, notes that the U.S. steel industry has had positive free cash flow in 14 of the past 19 years. While some companies with aging or less-efficient plants — such as U.S. Steel Corp. and AK Steel Holding Corp. — have struggled, others are profitable. Nucor Corp. has had negative free cash flow only once in the past 20 years.