[Ferro-Alloys.com]  U.S. Steel announced it is laying off 200 employees, following their decision to halt production at the Michigan facility. Executives are attributing the pull back to lower steel prices and softer demand. Ines Ferres and Akiko Fujita discuss.

Last year, President Trump visited U.S. Steel’s Granite City facility. The company idled the blast furnaces in 2015 as US steel prices fell. U.S. Steel announced the restart of two blast furnaces at Granite City last year in a bid to capitalize on higher US steel prices. Overall, life has come a full circle for U.S. Steel. After last year’s expansion, the company is considering production curtailments and layoffs.

U.S. Steel’s layoff announcement comes at a bad time for President Trump. Last week, he claimed that the US steel industry is “thriving” under his presidency. He also said that “U.S. Steel and all of them, all of them — they’re expanding all over the place.” However, U.S. Steel’s layoff announcement punctures the claim. Previously, U.S. Steel announced the closure of two blast furnaces on the same day that President Trump launched his 2020 campaign.

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• [Editor:kangmingfei]