US workers fear steel tariffs could be nail in the coffin

POPLAR BLUFF, US: The mood is tense at a nail factory in rural Missouri, where workers fear that steel tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration could cost them their jobs.

As giant spools of steel feed the manufacturing process, the men and women operating the whirring, screeching machines of the Mid-Continent Nail Corporation wonder if Trump himself will come to their rescue.

It has been a successful business, employing some 500 people in the rural community of Poplar Bluff.

“People like us, we thought: biggest nail manufacturer in the United States, our jobs should be safe.

Obviously, it’s not,” said machine shop supervisor Sean Hughey.

The nail company is publicly raising the alarm, saying the tariffs on steel imports may put it out of business.

They have had to raise prices to pay for more expensive steel and cannot compete with cheaper imported nails — completed products that face no tariffs at all.

“It’s a misguided policy,” said Chris Pratt, Mid Continent’s chief financial officer and operations chief.

“I just think it’s a policy that wasn’t thought out completely. And we got to fix it.” Many of the workers here voted for Trump.

And the Poplar Bluff region favored the president over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election by a margin of more than 60 per cent.