A steel company says they’ll give their employees a $1,000 bonus if Trump’s tariffs go through – following in the pattern of other companies trying to push policy through the president:
The company that operates several steel pipe and tube manufacturing plants in the Valley announced that it is awarding $1,000 bonuses to each of its employees.
Zekelman Industries Executive Chairman and CEO Barry Zekelman is sending a letter to his 2,300 employees at fifteen plants across North America notifying them that they will receive the bonuses annually when President Trump’s planned steel trade policy changes take effect, and for as long as they remain in place.
The president announced on Thursday that beginning next week, his administration will implement a 25% steel tariff and a 10% aluminum tariff.
“The domestic steel industry has been victimized by unfairly traded and dumped foreign products and the result in damage has been both massive and a threat to impair national security,” Zekelman writes to his employees.
Included in the bonuses are Wheatland Tube, headquartered in Sharon with operations in Wheatland, Pennsylvania and Warren, Ohio.
That’s no joke – $1,000 is a sweet bonus. But it’s on the back of the American consumer being forced to pay more for products that they simply have chosen not to for decades. This is what populism is – using the power of the government to prop up industries that just can’t compete in the free market. Is that what we want?