Following President Donald Trump's call for a tariff on steel and aluminum, US Steel CEO David Burritt said the company will reactivate its manufacturing plant in Granite City, creating 500 jobs for area steelworkers.
The restart process involving the furnaces and the steelmaking facilities at the Granite City plant could take up to four months.
Burritt recently told CNBC that the Granite City plant has been inactive for two years due to trade practices that he believed inequitable. "If you don't have customers here to sell to and you can't make money, you have to shut them down," Burritt said, according to CNBC.
Burritt commented on the tariff when he appeared with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on the CNBC news station. "It's really important that we get this right, and now it's finally happening," Burritt told CNBC, saying it felt like a renewal for the company. "You've got to be able to make stuff in the United States. If you take away our ability to make things, you don't really have a society."
Burritt compared the United States economy to that of the United Kingdom in years past, when it enjoyed a robust manufacturing base; he reiterated that nations must allow manufacturing to thrive in order to stay strong in the marketplace, according to CNBC.
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