Trade protection to benefit AK Steel's Butler Works
On the eve of the general election, the owner of AK Steel's Butler Works announced the Trump administration is taking action against electrical steel imports that threaten the jobs of steelworkers.
The move to impose trade protection would save 1,400 jobs here, Ohio-based Cleveland Cliffs Inc., which acquired the AK Holding Corp. in March, said in a news release Monday.
AK Steel mills in Butler and Zanesville, Ohio, are the last U.S. producers of grain-oriented electrical steels. The iron-silicon alloys were developed to provide low core loss and high permeability required for efficient and economical electrical transformers.
Cleveland Cliffs chairman and chief executive officer, Lourenco Goncalves, praised the decision to implement trade barriers on imported electrical steel under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.
The federal law allows Trump to unilaterally place levies on foreign steel and aluminum to protect national security.
This is an excerpt from a story that appears in Wednesday's Butler Eagle.
