<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/usw-petitions-president-trump-to-use-sotu-to-honor-trade-promises-300789883.html" style="color: purple;" class="">https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/usw-petitions-president-trump-to-use-sotu-to-honor-trade-promises-300789883.html</a><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><b class="">USW Petitions President Trump to Use SOTU to Honor Trade Promises</b></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">02/05/2019<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span class="xn-location">PITTSBURGH</span>, <span class="xn-chron">Feb. 5, 2019</span> /PRNewswire/ -- <i class="">United Steelworkers (USW) International President <span class="xn-person">Leo W. Gerard</span> released the following statement in advance of President Trump's 2019 State of the Union address:</i><o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">"In the everyday lives of American workers, far more threatening than immigration is offshoring. American workers are looking to President Trump to assure them in his State of the Union address that he will keep the pledges he made on the campaign trail to replace the broken free trade regime that has cost <span class="xn-location">the United States</span> tens of thousands of factories. Workers want fair trade that preserves family-supporting American jobs.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">"President Trump has embarked on several trade reform efforts, but the work to secure jobs and prosperity is far from complete. The administration has made far too little progress to suggest that the president's trade promises have been kept. A good example of the ongoing problems is GM. The corporation announced late last year that it would shift significant vehicle production to <span class="xn-location">Mexico</span> while bringing nearly <span class="xn-money">$7 billion</span> into <span class="xn-location">the United States</span> for half the tax rate, a bonus for offshorers that was slipped into the 2017 GOP tax law.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">"The incentives for manufacturers like GM to offshore jobs must be eliminated, and the proposed new NAFTA deal does not go far enough in doing that. The environmental and worker protections it contains must be swiftly and strictly enforceable, otherwise the deal is all talk and no action. <o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">"When Canada signed onto the proposed new NAFTA, it was with the understanding that <span class="xn-location">the United States</span> would terminate the Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum charged to our northern neighbor. The Section 232 tariffs have preserved some U.S. mills, spurred new investment and brought back some lost jobs. That was the intent – to protect two U.S. industries vital to national security. <o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">"They would have worked better, however, if they had been imposed with the precision of a scalpel, not inflicted with the blunt force of a sledgehammer. In addition, they would have been far more effective if <span class="xn-location">China</span> had not been granted massive exceptions. <o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">"<span class="xn-location">Canada</span> is an essential security ally and manufacturing partner, with metal forged in both countries crossing the border repeatedly for finishing into products ranging from cans to car engines. <span class="xn-location">Canada</span> should never have been included in the Section 232 tariffs, and the administration must immediately honor its pledge to end charging the penalties on Canadian steel and aluminum.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">"This is particularly important because <span class="xn-location">the United States</span> has granted to <span class="xn-location">Canada</span> only miniscule exclusions from the tariffs – only 2 percent of its steel exports and .2 percent of its aluminum exports. Meanwhile, <span class="xn-location">the United States</span> handed to <span class="xn-location">China</span>, the primary violator of international trade regulations, such gargantuan exceptions that the tariffs on <span class="xn-location">Beijing</span> are virtually useless now. Forty percent of <span class="xn-location">China's</span> steel exports to <span class="xn-location">the United States</span> are excluded from the tariffs and a whopping 86 percent of aluminum exports.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">"<span class="xn-location">China</span> is America's – and the world's – biggest trade problem. These colossal exclusions awarded to <span class="xn-location">China</span> defeat the purpose of the tariffs. <o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">"Workers across <span class="xn-location">the United States</span> are looking to the Trump administration to stand strong in current negotiations to resolve <span class="xn-location">China's</span> pervasive trade violations that have cost millions of American jobs. U.S. negotiators must find a way to stop <span class="xn-location">China</span> from stealing intellectual property and forcing American companies to transfer technology.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">"But, just as crucially, the administration must get <span class="xn-location">China</span> to end its predatory trade practices, including overproducing commodities such as aluminum and steel and flooding the world market with the excesses, causing prices to plummet and American and European mills to close.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">"American workers are looking for action from the administration that promised trade transformation."<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><i class="">The USW represents 850,000 workers in <span class="xn-location">North America</span> employed in many industries that include metals, rubber, chemicals, paper, oil refining and the service and public sectors.</i> <o:p class=""></o:p></p><div class=""><br class=""></div></body></html>