I used to spend my nights in the melted metal glow. Inside the aluminum smelter, the wind was thick with heat that was wrapped around you, such as a heavy coat that you could not take off. Electricity cracked as electricity as electricity, provoked oxygen from alumina, shiny, raw liquid aluminum silver stream left behind – metal that created everything from airplane to transmission lines.
We turned the raw earth into some strong and permanent. And today I am calling my leaders to bring that work, and are coming back to America by reinstating those good jobs, reinstroving primary aluminum production, because I know what it looks like when they disappear when they disappear.
I saw it for the first time when the door Magnitude 7 metals are off for good In 2024 in Marxon, Mo. I went out with a pink slip in my pocket and suddenly caught the experience of decades. It was not just me – hundreds of us lost their livelihood, and an entire community lost its anchor.
Grocery store, barber shop, gas stations at the corner – they did not only lose customers, they had lost neighbors. Primary, or raw, aluminum smelting is not just a task. It is a foundation for families and towns across America. When the smelter closed, the foundation exploded.
If President Trump really wants to stand with working people, he should prove it With a sloganBut with investment in primary aluminum production in the US. He tried to solve the problem with Section 232 tariff in 2018, so that the industry could be brought back from the verge. And before this Norand helped reopen the aluminum smelter. But without dealing with the real problem – Crushed cost of electricity to run a smelter – Tariffs will not cut it alone.
That is why despite those safety, magnitude 7 metals were closed. Tariff did not save my job, and they will not save the future of this industry. What will be the real investment in inexpensive, renewable-operated production that gives American aluminum a fight to compete.
America needs aluminum. Everything about the future – whether it is wind turbine in the midwest, the solar panels line in the desert ground, electric cars shutting down assembly lines – depends on aluminum. It is a metal of progress. And if we do not break it here, we will just keep buying it from abroad, often from dirty coal burning countries, while workers breathe toxic smoke.
Tariffs cannot solve that problem alone; The US requires real investment in cleaner, safe domestic smelting so that we can compete and lead.
We have another way: the creation of primary aluminum in the US, not by coal but by renewable energy. Imagine that the smelters run through the grid on hydropower, air or solar charging. Cleaner production also makes us aluminum more competitive on the world stage. China produces more than half of the world’s supplies – but what if we participated in American strength with American innovation, as competitors, if not more?
My job provided wages that supported my family, health care, which supported us safe and retirement plans, which meant future. Aluminum jobs are the jobs of federation, medium-class-building. If President Trump says that he will first put American workers, reopening and strengthening the aluminum smelters of America should be at the top of his agenda.
So Century aluminum plan to create a new smelter Is so exciting. This is not only a chance to create thousands of jobs on American earth, but also a chance to correct it. This looks like a future -proof industry: safe jobs and cleaner sky.
When the magnitude 7 smelter was closed, it seemed that the life I had created for my family was torn. But aluminum activists like me have not ended – we are skilled, strict and proud of the foundation of aircraft, cars and power lines that continue to walk to America. The primary aluminum is higher than the metal – it is about dignity in work, strong communities, and a clean energy with American sweat and skills provides strength to the future. If Trump is serious about standing with workers, he will stand with us. We know how the future metal is made – give us strength, and we will make it.
Dalton Ejell Magnitude is a former worker in 7 metals.
