US President Donald Trump dedicated his entire campaign speech Saturday to AK Steel in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“We saved 1,400 jobs at AK Steel right here in Butler,” Trump said in a meeting with voters, most of whom work at the steel plant. "Biden will close AK Steel," Trump said.
“Joe Biden will stop your economy, send your jobs to China, where he gets paid a lot of money, raise taxes by $ 4 trillion and send your state into a deep depression,” Trump said. “There will be no hydraulic fracturing, no production, no natural gas, no heating in winter, no air conditioning in summer. … There will be no Easter, no Christmas, no Thanksgiving, no Fourth of July - nothing. ”
"How do you feel about this?" Trump asked the crowd, who responded with a series of whooshing exclamations. "They don't like this idea," he stated.
The company's problem is that the US market remains open to foreign transformer steel, which is the main product of AK Steel. Trump is pushing for a Section 232 import stop (a threat to U.S. national security), but his rival Joe Biden has yet to comment on the protectionist policies.
Democratic Senator Bob Casey said in a press release last Friday that “while the President travels to Butler County, where AK Steel Butler Works is located, I again urge him to take long-overdue steps to ensure the United States does not lose the last remaining electrical steel maker afloat.
“Together with my colleague Senator Sherrod Brown, I have repeatedly stressed the importance of including electrical steel in section 232 for the president and senior administration officials for most of the three years. We are still awaiting the results of Commerce Department 232, but Butler County workers cannot wait long. We cannot leave our workers at a disadvantage. "
Earlier this year, AK Steel acquired Cleveland Cliffs, which threatened to close the plant unless the tariff loophole was changed.
While total revenues were boosted by the AK Steel acquisition this year, the company's traditional pelletising business has been hit hard by the pandemic. Cleveland Cliffs also reported losses of $ 0.31 per share and $ 0.02 per share in the second and third quarters of 2020.
After rising more than 160% from March lows this year at a current price of more than $ 8 per share, financial analysts believe Cleveland-Cliffs is overvalued. The iron ore and pellets giant's shares have surged from $ 3 to $ 8 from a recent low compared to the S&P 500, which rose nearly 52% from recent lows. The stock outperformed the market as a whole, with the US government announcing a series of measures, along with stimulus packages announced in other countries, to keep businesses afloat, leading to higher prices for iron ore and pellets.
Even though Cleveland Cliffs is currently close to the December 2019 level, we can see a 25% drop from the current price.
