Town backs Trump, ‘no matter what’

back Trump, even as he worries that if the company shuts down, he will not be able to make his $800 monthly mortgage or come up with $700 a month for payments on his Dodge pickup, Chrysler sedan and Harley-Davidson Street Fighter.

“I feel like maybe the tariff policy might have been just a tad misguided, you know?” he said. “Maybe they didn’t think it through.”

As a stream of workers stopped at the Munch-NPump gas station near the nail plant recently to pick up sodas, cigarettes and sausage-and-cheese biscuits, they said supervisors had told them not to talk to the media.

Yet there is fear that hundreds of workers could be laid off, a potentially staggering blow to a town where a quarter of the population lives in poverty and the median household income is $31,675.

Others blamed the firm for importing steel from Mexico.

“Mass layoffs? I don’t believe it’s going to happen,” said Randy Wade, 42, a supervisor for a local vending company, rolling his eyes as he filled a cup with Coca-Cola at the soda fountain.

“If they’re going to do business in Mexico, they kind of deserve it,” he added. “They need to deal with Americans.”

Some companies across the country have celebrated the tariffs — U.S. Steel has announced plans to reopen two blast furnaces in Illinois — but trade experts say that overall, the measures are likely to bring more job losses than gains.

The Tax Foundation, an independent nonprofit tax policy group, estimates 48,500 jobs will be lost as a result of the tariffs imposed on imports of steel, aluminum, washing machines, solar panels and $50 billion worth of Chinese goods.

If Trump presses ahead with further tariffs, and other nations retaliate, it predicts 342,000 jobs could be lost.

Asked whether she would rethink her support for Trump if she lost her job, Brogdon said probably not. The tariffs ultimately would be good for the nation — even if it left her unemployed.

“Overall, he’s done good,” she said. “I’m not going to be selfish just because of me.”

BILL GREENBLATT/GETTY-AFP Nails sit on a machine last month at an idled Mid Continent Nail Corp. plant in Poplar Bluff, Mo. Orders have slowed after steel tariffs started in June.