During Friday’s rally in West Mifflin, PA, President Trump spoke about his record of support for American steelworkers.
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00:00But they allowed, they allowed that to happen. I built almost 700 miles of wall. If we didn't have the wall, we could have never done what we did. Over 700 miles. But still, they came because they didn't want to finish. They didn't want to close up any gap. The gaps that we had to keep so that we could get our equipment out so we could get through. They didn't want to put up the final stages. It would have taken three weeks to put up the final stages. They said, no, we don't want the wall built.
00:28And I thought they were kidding, but they weren't. They wanted open borders and what they let into our country can never be forgotten. The last administration granted tens of thousands of job killing tariff exemptions to your foreign competitors. So they were afraid to take down the tariffs that I imposed because it was so good for our country, so much money. But what they did do, think of this, they gave exemptions and they were so broad and so deep.
00:58And I guess you saw that. But the exemptions that they gave allowed foreign competitors to come in and steal our industry, steal our jobs and bring them back home and bring them home by the boatload, crippling imports of foreign steel skyrocketed over the last four years like you have never seen before by over 30 percent.
01:20That's an incredible, crazy number. And imports of steel and rebar from Mexico exploded by more than 1,000 percent.
01:29We were getting our steel from Mexico. We were getting our steel from Canada. We were getting our steel from every place. But right here, it was then that we announced the crown jewel of our steel industry. U.S. Steel was being sold into foreign hands with no protections for our great steel workers.
01:48And I said, there's no way we're going to let that happen. When I was watching over you. You don't even know it. I was watching over you. Best people. You're the best people. You built this country.
02:04You know, you people built this country. You people and others like you built this country. By the time I came into office, many feared that the Mon Valley would lose up to 3,000 steel jobs.
02:16That U.S. Steel would close. And it was a fixture of the Pittsburgh skyline. It may never live for another week. We had times we thought we were going to live. You weren't living for another week.
02:29But I promised the people of Western Pennsylvania that I would never, ever let that happen. And as president, I kept that promise. Boy, did I keep that promise.
