St. Louis-area business leaders are voicing their concerns about the impact of the Trump Administration’s trade policies. During a business roundtable hosted today by U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, she says the Missouri manufacturing and agriculture businesses involved in the event stand to lose billions of dollars from the president’s trade war.
Missouri U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill and St. Louis-area business leaders participate in business roundtable on Aug. 27, 2018
“We’re already seeing lost jobs and falling commodity prices—and I’m worried things will only get worse if we don’t reverse course.” McCaskill says.
She calls today’s testimony “a grave concern”.
“We’ve got to get this fixed and it’s not going to be enough to have an outline of an agreement just with Mexico to solve this problem,” says McCaskill. “The markets that are going away are not going to come back right away.”
Hudson Moore, Senior Director of Packaging Procurement at Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis has noticed a difference from his business standpoint.
“All North American aluminum buyers must pay what’s known in the industry as the Midwest Premium, which is basically is an industry standard price component for aluminum products.” Moore explains. “In the time since the Administration announced the section 232 tariffs the Midwest Premiums have spiked.”
Other business leaders voicing their concerns include Ken McInnis, Director of Americas Supply Chain & Global Purchasing at RotoMetrics in Eureka; Mark Scott, a member of the Board of Directors for the Missouri Corn Growers Association from Wentzille, and Mark Weisheit, Vice President and General Manager at Nidec Motor Corporation in St. Louis.
The roundtable comes on the same day that the Trump Administration announced that a tentative agreement has been reached with Mexico to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement with a deal the administration wants to be more favorable to the United States.
By Missourinet contributor Jill Enders
