Speaking at the U.S. Steel Irvin Plant, President Trump trumpeted the investment partnership between U.S. Steel and Japan’s Nippon Steel, as well as a major tariff escalation on foreign steel. The measures, he declared, would “secure American steel for generations” and reinstate Pittsburgh’s status as the “Steel City.”
“This storied American company stays an American company,” Trump said. “You’re going to stay an American company. You know that, right?”
The centerpiece of Trump’s speech was a "$14 billion investment" by Nippon Steel, which he described as “the single largest investment of any kind in any industry in the history of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” According to the President, the deal includes:
“You’re going to have control, you’re going to maintain control,” Trump told the crowd. “Most importantly, U.S. Steel will continue to be controlled by the USA. Otherwise I wouldn’t have done the deal.”
The President also declared a new increase in tariffs on foreign steel from 25% to 50%, calling it a necessary move to protect the domestic industry. "It is my great honor to raise the Tariffs on steel and aluminum from 25% to 50%, effective Wednesday, June 4th," he posted.
“We’re bringing it up from 25 percent—we’re doubling it to 50 percent,” he said. “At 25 percent, they can sort of get over that fence. At 50 percent, they can no longer get over the fence.”
Trump credited former U.S. Steel President Dave Burritt with originally pressing for tariff protections. “He came to the White House and he said, ‘Sir, we’re in trouble. We need help.’… I said, ‘Dave, I think we’re going to make you very happy.’ And we did.”
Trump framed the announcement in nationalistic and historic terms, calling steel “a matter of national security” and recalling his first-term tariffs as decisive in reversing industry decline. “If you don’t have steel, you don’t have a country,” he said. “You can’t make a military… you can’t make a tank or a ship without steel.”
He warned that decades of “Washington betrayals and incompetence” had devastated Pittsburgh’s mills and allowed “dumping” of low-quality foreign steel, particularly from China.
“We don’t want America’s future to be built with shoddy steel from Shanghai,” Trump declared. “We want it built with the strength and the pride of Pittsburgh.”
Trump used the rally to reinforce broader themes of American sovereignty and economic resurgence. He praised Japan as “a tremendous friend” and expressed hope for a revived alliance grounded in industrial cooperation.
He also criticized President Biden’s administration, accusing it of issuing “tens of thousands of job-killing tariff exemptions” and presiding over a weakened border and economy. “Four calamitous years,” he called it. “But now we have the hottest, most talked about nation anywhere in the world.”
The rally concluded with Trump receiving an honorary Pittsburgh Steelers jersey and emotional endorsements from local union members, who hailed the deal as vital to the future of Western Pennsylvania’s industrial workforce.
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