Welcome, everybody, to Cleveland-Cliffs' Press Conference today. We are going to have our Chairman, President, and CEO, Lourenco Goncalves, speak. After him, he'll introduce Senator Bernie Moreno from the state of Ohio. When we're completed with their remarks, I'll come back, and we will open up for questions with the media. Thank you. I'll now turn it over to Lourenco.
Thank you, Pat. Good morning, everyone. It's a great, great pleasure being here with you this morning to talk about what's going on in this country, and what's going on is beyond exciting. This is a dream coming true. What's going on right now is one of the most important things that has ever happened in the history of this country, but before we even start, I need to acknowledge a few presences. First one is my dear friend, U.S. Senator from Ohio, Bernie Moreno. My friend, my partner, fellow American, fellow immigrant like me, American by choice, like me. Also, I'd like to acknowledge Clifford Babcock of Junction Auto Family. Clifford, where are you? Clifford supplied these two beautiful General Motors vehicles that you see here at my left side. These two vehicles have more than 1,000 lbs of Cliffs' steel on each one.
Also, I'd like to recognize Brian Panteck. Brian? Brian brought to us these two great cars, a beautiful truck, and a beautiful Toyota Camry. By the way, Toyota North America is a real American company employing American workers. These two cars have a lot of steel, more than 800 lbs on the Camry, more than 1,000 lbs on the truck, and by the way, we have more than 120 cars that have a significant portion of Cliffs' steel that are built in the United States. We selected 50, the 50 that have the most from the clients that buy a lot of Cliffs' steel to put in the cars, and these are the cars that I would like my employees to buy. Because the revolution that's going on will be fueled by consumers, American consumers, doing the right thing.
So the program that we're putting in place today is very simple. It's a token of appreciation to what President Trump is bringing back to America. And he's bringing back to America the American Dream. Because the American Dream is not buying cheap stuff on Amazon. That's a convenience. And that was enabled by a lot of things, a lot of the wrong things. Now we are bringing things back to the way they should be. They should be cheap, but they should be cheap because they are reasonable. We can't understand the car manufacturers moving parts across the border between the United States and Mexico seven or eight times before the final vehicle is assembled. This is crazy. This is stupid. This is not supply chain. This is bad management.
We want them to build cars in America using American steel, employ American workers, fortify a middle class that is able to afford things and be able to buy things, pay the right price. We are not going to create any type of inflation. This is all baloney. It's not going to happen. You guys know that steel prices already went up without us doing anything other than the market being the market, the capitalism, capitalism working for the people that should work, you, not for the billionaires. So steel price went up. Last year, last quarter, the steel was selling for $600 per ton. Right now, it's selling for $900. That's a 50% increase in price. And then you say, "We agree, Lourenco, 50% increase in price," and then you're saying that's a good thing. Yes, it's necessary.
Because at $600, you guys saw we had a big loss in Q4. Because it's below our cost of capital. It's below our ability to keep you guys employed. So why you guys are not unemployed? Because I made the decision not to fire anyone. And I took it on the chest on behalf of the Cliffs shareholders. And I appreciate the support that shareholders continue to give to me. But that's not a decision that CEOs normally do, taking a loss to keep people employed just because best days are ahead. I knew that best days were ahead. And I decided to keep my employees ready to grow. We are ready to grow. We are ready for the manufacturing revolution that President Trump is bringing. It's so simple.
If you want to avoid penalties, if you want to avoid tariffs, if you want to do well for the American people, build things, produce things, manufacture things in America. You can do it with General Motors. We can do it with Toyota. We are very welcoming people. A guy that was born in Brazil like me and a guy that was born in Colombia like Bernie Moreno, we are very grateful that by the grace of God, we're able to come to this country and be able to raise our families in this country, and my kids and my grandkids and maybe more grandkids are on the way. They will all be American, and they will be in this blessed land, but we need to do our part, and that's what we're doing.
Every employee that buys a car that has a meaningful tonnage of Cliffs' steel will receive $1,000 payment back like a bonus. This is a token of our appreciation. And just for your information, with 35 minutes of the news out for you guys, we already had three inquiries, not inquiries, three real, with documentation, backed by documentation, everything, all good to go. And more than 20 inquiries. One minute before we started, Paul said that we already have six and the inquiries are lost track because there's too many in the hundreds. So our employees are embracing the thing and embracing very quickly. That's great. You have a lot of models to pick from. Just don't pick a truck that has aluminum. I don't like it. It's bad. We want steel, and we want Cliffs' steel. Don't pick an imported car. Pick an American-made car.
As simple as that. Because these are the cars that will generate your jobs, that will make the Big 3, Big 4, Big 5, because I include Toyota in the Big 3. I include Honda in the Big 5. So these folks need to build more and more cars in America, not in Mexico, not in Canada, not abroad. Right here, employing our people to be generating the jobs that will make you guys consumers. And then everything will be fine. Prices will go to where prices should go. I gave you the 50%. And now let me give you another number for you to have in mind in the press. Please pay attention to that. The $300 increase increases the price of the car by $300. Why is that? Because you heard the numbers I gave. One car has one ton of steel or less.
That Toyota Camry out there has 0.9 tons of steel on it, not even a ton. So let's call it a ton to make it simple. $300, average price of a car is $50,000. So $300 one ton of steel per car, the car itself, $50,000, $300 more is 0.6% increase. Less than 1% increase for the dealers' association that are here. I appreciate you guys coming. Less than 1%. Less than 1%, $300 bucks. So where are the $10,000 that the car manufacturers are saying that the Trump tariffs will bring to the price of cars? In their minds. These numbers don't exist. This is a freaking absurd number that makes absolutely no sense. But if they believe that their nonsense will fly, try again. They're not dealing with people that live in la-la land.
They are dealing with Donald Trump, Howard Lutnick, Jamieson Greer, Scott Bessent, Bernie Moreno. These are people that they know math. They know numbers. And more than anything, they want what's best for the American people. What we are doing today is small, but I hope it's the spark that will ignite other companies, other businesses, even the government, to provide subsidies to the people to let them move toward buying American-made goods. CEOs only understand the power of one thing, and that's the power of the people. We, the people. That's we. And that's what we're doing today. With that, I'd like to introduce my friend Bernie Moreno to say words that I'm sure that you'll enjoy.
Thank you, Lourenco. Thank you.
Thank you, Bernie.
Thank you, Lourenco, and thank you to all of you for the hard work that you put in. I want to introduce my wife over there. Bridget, raise your hand. It's my wife, Bridget. As I told Lourenco on the way in, my wife said that she worked at a steel mill in the summer when she was a kid, and this place is dramatically cleaner than the place she worked. Her dad was a steelworker his whole life. He graduated from high school, reported to Gary Works the next day, and worked there his whole life. At the end of his career, worked for AK Steel for a little bit and was very unhappy with the way the place was managed before Cliffs bought it, so he retired.
But in the meantime, he was able to raise three kids, own a home, own a car, and is now completely debt-free and living a nice life. That's the American dream. And that's what's been under attack. This idea that we can just ship our industrial base overseas, have China make our steel, have Japan make our cars, have Mexico make other products, and we're just going to be a consumer society, does that make any sense to any of you? And then when you hear the Democrats say, "Well, look, if we shut down your steel mills because we can buy subsidized steel from China cheaper, then all you need to do is go get retrained. Go be tech coders." That's the mentality that's got to change, and that's what we are changing. Look, the jobs that you have allow you to provide for a good middle-class life.
Owning a car and owning a home shouldn't be out of reach for Americans. You should be able to take a vacation every once in a while. You shouldn't worry about what retirement is, and I think one of the biggest changes that President Trump has brought to the Republican Party is this idea that there were Republicans that were against unions. That's not the case at all. The reality is, if unions are going to be a force to help lift up middle-class people, I'm all for it. I'm all for making certain whatever we do that allows us to work for average Americans, for middle-class Americans. Look, the rich people, they don't need help. They're all good. We need to be advocates for the working class, and I applaud Lourenco for what he's doing here. The $1,000 will make a difference.
I want to also introduce where do you go, Zach Doran, if you could raise your hand. Stand up and raise your hand. He came all the way from Columbus. Thank you, Zach. Zach runs the Ohio Auto Dealers Association. So I've asked him and his members, and you can see two of them already stepped up in a big way, that when a Cliffs employee walks into any auto dealership in Ohio, that they take special care of them. If there's something special they can do for them that would be above and beyond what they would do, it would be fantastic. Because look, we got to get car prices down. We're working on that in Washington, D.C. Part of the way we're going to do that is stop forcing everybody to buy electric vehicles. If you want to buy an EV, absolutely you should.
But the government shouldn't be forcing you into buying electric vehicles. And we talked about this $1,000 incentive from Cliffs. It's fantastic. I want you to know how crazy things have been in the last four years. If you walk into a Rolls-Royce dealership, by the way, which I used to own, so I'm saying this out of pure knowledge, you can get $7,500 from the federal government if you lease that car that has zero U.S. content and is $500,000. Process that for a second. Your government is giving multi-millionaires $7,500 to lease an electric Rolls-Royce. How does that even make sense? How do you even justify that? So we're going to get rid of that, make certain that we're not in the business of deciding which cars people should buy. We're going to unleash the marketplace.
We're going to make certain that we have one federal standard for emissions that we set for 10 years to give the car companies the certainty they need. Because at the end of the day, here's what we're after. We can no longer shift our industrial base overseas. In fact, we're going to do the exact opposite. We want more things made in America. And in fact, I told Lourenco, I've been texting with Mary Barra and John Elkann, who runs Stellantis worldwide, and Jim Farley. Showed him what Cliffs is doing. I'm hoping other companies step up and do the same thing. If they sell cars here in America, if they sell cars here in America, where should they be made? In America. Right? That shouldn't be controversial. That shouldn't be very complicated.
And right now, the number is four million cars are sold here that are made somewhere else. Imagine what the impact would be on our communities if those four million cars came back. Imagine what it would look like for all of you, the business. I told Lourenco, the goal is in four years for this place to be bursting at the seams. He said he has about 3,000 more employees in Indiana than Ohio. So now I know what I have to work on is to make sure at the end of my first term, which is six years, that we have at least 4,000 more employees in Ohio than we have now. Right? We can make that happen. Certainly, we can make it happen if we stop having Japanese or Chinese steel go into cars made in Mexico that are being shipped and sold here.
Because if the cars are made here, they're going to have Cliffs' steel. So that's our goal, and I'll leave with this as something the press misses. Why does this matter? We understand why it matters to all of you, but why does it matter to the country? Very simple. If you look at when World War II happened, right? Japan hit Pearl Harbor. The Germans invaded Europe. America got drawn into that war. We didn't have better technology than Germany or Japan. They had actually the superior technology. So the question became, well, then how did America and America uniquely and alone win World War II? Because it wasn't our allies that won. It was the United States of America that made that war victorious. Why? Despite not having the same advanced technology that the Germans and the Japanese had, you know what we could do?
We could make a lot of shit really fast, and it was the auto industry and the steel industry that stepped up and made tanks and planes and bullets and ammunition that allowed us to win that war. Think about where we are today, where we've gutted our industrial base. If heaven forbid any other conflict like that ever happened, we don't have the industrial might we once had, and we're going to change course on that. We're going to change course on it really, really fast. Now, there's also a conversation about President Trump's tariffs with Mexico and Canada. Let me explain that, and I'll raise my hand. I'm somebody who knows a close family member who's died of fentanyl poisoning, and I think I'm not going to ask all of you to raise your hand because I know the answer.
It's 100,000+ Americans every year that die of fentanyl poisoning. These are not drug addicts. These are kids that may take a pill that maybe they thought they would be, "I'll do it one time," and that pill's laced with fentanyl. Where is the fentanyl coming from? Canada and Mexico. They say they're our friends. And we like Canadians. We like people from Mexico. It's not who we like or not like. But if you're going to be our ally, why are you allowing fentanyl to come into our country that kills over 100,000 Americans per year? Friends don't do that. By the way, friends that we pay for 100% of their defense, we pay the entire cost of defending Mexico and Canada. They rip us off to the tune of $300 billion a year in trade deficits.
If that's not enough, then they're letting insane amounts of fentanyl ship into our country that kills 100,000 Americans. Joe Biden did nothing about it. President Trump is saying, "Hey, look, that's going to stop." And I applaud him for doing that. I get a lot of questions from reporters. "Yeah, but you're not concerned that these tariffs will raise prices? Are you not concerned with the impact on Americans?" I said, "I'm concerned about the impact that 100,000 fentanyl poisonings have on the families." And if you know somebody, you know it's a life sentence. You lose a 22-year-old son or an 18-year-old daughter to fentanyl poisoning or a mom or a dad, you don't get over that. That's with you for the rest of your life. All we're saying to our neighbors is, "Hey, look, stop." I had a whole Canadian delegation visit my office this week.
They're like, "Oh, you know we're friends. We love you. And Americans love Canada." I said, "All that is irrelevant. Stop shipping in fentanyl." You know what they said? "Well, we don't ship in a lot." I said, "Well, how much do you think is acceptable?" Do you want me to go tell the families of people in Ohio whose kids have died and said, "Well, you know it was only just you and 4,000 other families. It's not a big deal." That's ridiculous. And you've seen, hopefully, Canada and Mexico do more, but they have to do even more. And so I 100% applaud President Trump for doing that. And it's not our decision now. This decision is squarely in the hands of the leaders of Canada and Mexico.
If they want to stop the flow of fentanyl, wipe out the drug cartels, wipe out the fentanyl labs, that's on them. If they want us to help them, our military is ready to go. Call us in, and we will wipe these drug cartels off the face of the earth. But ultimately, that's what's going to depend on these tariffs. And the last thing I'll say is, again, I'll repeat what I said earlier. To the car companies, whether it's Toyota, Stellantis, General Motors, Ford, you sell a car here, you're going to make it here. Because it's extremely important for us to get there. So thank you to the auto dealers for stepping up. I think they're going to take very good care of you guys.
I'm hoping that other companies get motivated to do something similar and that we allow this auto renaissance to happen here in America. And Lourenco, I applaud you for your leadership. He's been a great voice in Washington, D.C., to really talk about why it's so important that we continue on this path to protect our steel industry. Lourenco knows these numbers off the top of his head. China now makes 60% of the world's steel. They want to take over the entire. The Chinese won't be happy unless this plant is completely closed and we're buying Chinese steel. And over our dead bodies, will we ever allow something like that to happen? So thank you, Lourenco.
Thank you. And look, this is just perfect. That's exactly what we need to hear from our U.S. Senator, our Ohio man, together with Jon Husted, that are representing us in Ohio. Ohio has a great moment right now. The Vice President of the United States, J.D. Vance, who is our friend, is from Ohio, from Middletown, Ohio, the biggest producer of automotive steel in the country. His grandpa that raised him retired working for AK Steel prior to our acquisition. So J.D. Vance, nobody needs to explain Vice President J.D. Vance what Bernie just explained so eloquently. He knows because he grew up right there and he saw by himself. So nobody will ever be able to convince J.D. Vance otherwise.
One last thing, because you guys hear and the press hears a lot, and the press sees once they repeat over and over again, and a lie repeated over and over again does not become truth. It's still a lie. Let's talk about technology. The most modern galvanized plant producing structural steels for a car in the entire world is located right here in this plant, Cleveland Works in Cleveland, Ohio. One more for you, because that's been repeated a lot. It's the second and last, and then we're open for Q&A, Pat. Technology. There's one company that we know of that tried hydrogen and blast furnaces in industrial scale in the entire world, and that's Cleveland-Cliffs. And they did it twice.
Once in Middletown and once in Indiana Harbor. I tested in the smallest blast furnace that we have that's in Middletown. It worked. Then I tested in our biggest blast furnace in Indiana Harbor, number seven, which is the biggest blast furnace in the Western world. We've successfully in Middletown, successfully in Indiana Harbor. We built a definitive pipeline to feed hydrogen to Indiana Harbor. Then we tested again. Success. We shut it down and I waited for hydrogen coming from the former President Biden that never came, so I never used it. Now, Nippon Steel is trying to come to the country. They're not coming and say that they have hydrogen, they do not. They only have lab trials.
They never had the courage to do what we did at Cleveland-Cliffs to put in real life because they're afraid that that would explode the blast furnaces. We proved that it doesn't explode, and we can produce integrated steel generating no CO2, but then we stopped because there's no hydrogen. If one day we have hydrogen, I want you to know, Bernie, we are ready. With that, I'm open for questions for both of us. Yep. Please. Very good, so we'll take questions from the media here on site, and we might have a virtual question or two.
So let's start with the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Hi. My name is Molly. I'm with cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer. I just want to start and say thank you both so much for your time today. Senator Moreno, I just have a question for you. So President Trump, as you know, gave the auto industry this one-month delay from the tariffs. I'm wondering if you think that should be permanent. Why or why not?
Well, again, it's not on President Trump to make this decision. It's up to the leaders of Canada and Mexico. If they continue to ship fentanyl into our country, maybe the tariffs will go up to 50%. We're going to punish those countries that allow Americans to die. That's very simple. If Canada and Mexico end the shipment of fentanyl into this country, then the tariffs will end. We're going to make the tariffs reciprocal.
So the 25% is about ending bad behavior. But you may know, and this is not very well reported, imagine how stupid you have to be to allow foreign countries to ship things to us tariff-free. And then when we ship our products to them, they tariff us. Who would make a deal like that? You have to have leaders that are catastrophically stupid to allow something like that to happen. So we're going to have reciprocal tariffs. So if they want to tariff us, then we're going to tariff them. And if they don't want to tariff us, then we're not going to tariff them. So it's very simple. It's about reciprocal trade. The 25% today that will go up to 50% or maybe even 100% is until they stop killing American citizens. We're not going to put up with that.
And by the way, shipping illegals into our country. You saw this at the State of the Union address. Joe Biden allowed 300,000 illegals into this country every single month. 300,000. All the Democrats in Congress said, "Oh, we got to pass all these legislation." And no, we didn't. We just need a new president. We have border encounters down to a record low. Never been this low. We're going to get it to zero, which is what it should be. I mean, how many people do you allow into your home without your permission? Am I allowed to break in your kitchen window and then take your food? I mean, I don't think most of you would greet me that way. I think I would probably be greeted with a piece of steel in my head, right? Because you can't break into somebody's home. But America's our home.
Why are we letting people break into our home? And I think that's being allowed by Mexico and Canada. So it's on them. It's not on President Trump. Yeah, you would be actually here in Ohio, you would be greeted with a gun because we are a Second Amendment people. So anyway.
Okay. Do we have another question? Here we go.
Nora McKeown, Spectrum News. Thanks for being here. Can I ask Mr. Goncalves, can you give some more information on what criteria you used and the eligibility for the vehicles of the bonus incentive?
I'm sorry. Say it again.
Can you give some more information on the criteria and which vehicles are eligible for the bonus incenti ve?
Yeah. The criteria is the vehicle needs to have a significant tonnage of Cliffs steel inside. So we selected because we sell steel at a significant level to more than 150 vehicles produced in this country. But in order to make it simple for our employees, we went down to 50 vehicles. It's 15 General Motors, 10 Toyota, six Honda, three Nissan, four Subaru, three Fords, one Stellantis, the RAM, just one, five Mercedes, and one Hyundai. That's it. 50 in total. I'm not going to give you the models, but our employees will know. I don't want my competition to know how much steel, my steel, is in the car. So that's a fine line for me to navigate. I'm telling you, the Stellantis is only the RAM because they became a globalist company.
But the RAM, the best-selling car, they don't have the courage to take our steel out. Only the other ones. And Ford, just for your note, don't buy the F-150. The F-150, even though we supply all the infrastructure of the car, all the structural steels, the outside of the car for the last 10 years has been aluminum. So we are trying to make them motivated to move back to steel. They moved that to aluminum long ago because gas prices would be ripping up, and then drill, baby drill is coming. So there's no reason to keep aluminum there. So we're going to be okay there.
Okay. Do you have another question?
I hope I answered your question. I'm not going to give you more than that.
The 50 models is a lot. I mean, that's a lot.
Yeah. There's choices. Look how beautiful these trucks and SUVs and sedans. So we have all kinds, all kinds, even EVs. The Hummer EV is included.
We're going to put Lourenco in the showroom of some of these dealerships that'll sell some of these guys.
No, they're a bad idea.
Hi. My name is Annabelle. I am with the NBC station, WKYC. I would love if you could both talk more about job growth. So you mentioned the 4,000 figure over the next four years. But what will job growth look like in the short term, so next year or two, and then also stretching to 10 years?
Can I take that first? Okay. When President Trump was president for the first time, I made a very complicated move at the time because at the time, Cleveland-Cliffs was a mining company with $2 billion in revenues a year, $2 billion a year. I made the commitment to build a new plant in Toledo, Ohio, to produce direct reduced iron. That's state-of-the-art. We started in 2018. We completed construction and started operation in 2020. And I spent $1 billion to build that plant. So it was a company with $2 billion in revenues, building a plant that costs $1 billion, not in profits, in revenues. Costs $1 billion. That plant is there. It's the most modern direct reduction plant in the entire world. And direct reduction is the next level of production.
Why did I make that decision? I made that decision because we had a president that was fully committed to investing in America, investing in American jobs, and creating an American market that would buy American products. As simple as that. Unfortunately, he was not reelected, and everything went to a different route. Now he's back. So it's easy to see that we're going to do the same thing again. Late last year, in the fourth quarter, we had a terrible quarter because steel demand was going down and down and down and down. We kept employment. We shut down a blast furnace here. That's a steel shutdown, but I never let any employee go, and I have my president of the union here, Dick Pecsar, and he knows that I'm Dick. Please, stand up. Dick is the president of the 979.
Yes, sir, so we are together on this, and we will continue to grow plants. Senator Moreno mentioned that we have almost 9,853 employees in Indiana. We have 6,500 and something here in Ohio. I want to put new plants, and I want to do it in Ohio, but we need this thing going. This is a movement that the President and the Vice President and the Secretary of Commerce and the USTR and great representatives of our people, like Senator Moreno, will make this thing move forward. It's a process. We need everybody engaged, everybody together. And then we'll do it because it's the right thing to do.
Yeah. And just a follow-up, because again, you'd have to dig into the media to understand these numbers. President Trump's been in office for less than two months, less than two months. In that period of time, the border is now completely sealed and secure. You have about under 200 border encounters where we used to have up to 20,000 border encounters every day. So the border's sealed. Think about how in less than eight weeks, boom. That tells you what happened over the last four years was completely intentional. Number two, we've had $1.6 trillion in commitments to invest in America, from Apple to TSMC that makes manufacturer of semiconductor chips. You have companies that have already committed $1.6 trillion. I mean, what's going to happen is we're going to see a renaissance in manufacturing in this country like we've never seen, and we need it.
We gutted our industrial base. Look, this is no surprise to anybody in Ohio. Drive to Lorain, Toledo, Youngstown, Dayton. These were thriving, very successful cities. In fact, I'll give you a stat. Again, you'll never read the news. In 1949, right after World War II, six of the wealthiest 14 cities in the entire United States of America were in Ohio. We're barely in the top 50 now, and do you know where the wealthiest cities in America are now? Around Washington, D.C. What do they make there? You know what they make? Corrupt politicians. They are the manufacturing center of corrupt politicians, and that's why they're so wealthy.
We're going to turn that around in a big way, and we're going to revitalize this country, and we're going to do it in a very short period of time. As President Trump would say, you're going to get sick of winning.
Okay. Great. I think we have a question back here from John Kosich. Let me give him my microphone.
Hey, Lourenco. John Kosich from Channel 5 here in Cleveland. You're heavily more into steel than you were in 2018 when the tariffs went into effect back then. But you saw the impact of there were clawbacks from Mexico, the impact that it had in Canton. What went wrong with those tariffs? And are you concerned that we're seeing now negotiations on other tariffs, clawbacks and such? Are you concerned how important is it if these go into effect, as they will next week, if they stay in effect for you guys to build?
That's a fair question, John. And I appreciate the question. Let's try to explain. I believe that the existing situation with Mexico and Canada. Senator Moreno was very eloquent and very clear on the explanation of the rationale and what needs to be done in order to eliminate those. So I will not even dwell there. What I will say is that the fact that we have Mexico and Canada, particularly Mexico, particularly Mexico, being hit with tariffs on a country basis beyond fentanyl is because Mexico invited people to our party that was not part of our party. Our party was USMCA, U.S., M, that's Mexico, and CA, that's Canada.
We never said that others that just because they use Mexico or Canada to transship or to likely modify something just to avoid legislation, avoid CBP, Customs and Border Protection, would be allowed into the party, and that's the rationale behind the entire thing. Fast forward for the tariffs that will come into effect next week on March 12, there will be Section 232 National Security Based Tariffs on steel. These tariffs are coming in ironclad. This administration, from the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, the Vice President of the United States, J.D. Vance, Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, and the United States Trade Representative, Jamieson Greer, they have zero intention to allow, like the Biden people did, for exclusions, exceptions, side deals, things like that. It will be all over, all over the entire spectrum of steel. We don't need it. We don't want it.
And we don't care about everything that's outside of the United States. We are self-sufficient. We produce less steel than we have the market for. We can produce more. We can produce new plants. We can invest. I prove it that time and time and time again, that $2 billion in revenues that I had when I built the plant in Toledo last year was 20. Even with all the disastrous policies of the Biden administration, we're able to multiply the size of our company by 10 x. So imagine what we can do in terms of employment and in terms of wealth for the people if we have an administration that supports us. We will continue to grow. As simple as that.
And you brought up Republic Steel. So this is a good example. I'm sure all of you know this story, but it's worth repeating to see if the media covers it. Look, Republic Steel was an American steel company. You may say it didn't do a good job. It doesn't matter. They're an American company. We, meaning the United States government, allowed a Mexican steel company to buy it, and they made all kinds of promises. You know, this sounds familiar, that they would invest in America, et cetera, et cetera. They took all the cash out of the company. They physically went into the mills, including the one in Canton, and took the most valuable equipment, shipped it to Mexico.
They then built a state-of-the-art steel mill in Mexico, shut down Republic Steel in Canton and the one in New York, basically gutted the entire company, and now we're shipping that steel made in Mexico, totally tariff-free, into America. What happened to the people who worked in those communities? What happened to the people who worked in those companies? Totally screwed. Was it their fault? No. It was the fault of their government. These are the things that we're never going to allow again. By the way, our great American companies should never be in a position where we have to be bought out or saved by some foreign company. That's insane.
Thank you. Right there. Perfect. Thank you.
So I know, Mr. Goncalves, you said that currently the domestic steel industry isn't supplying enough for the market, and tariffs could eventually bring us to a place where that's possible. But Mr. Moreno, are you concerned about the impact that will have on other industries in the immediate future?
No, not at all. Because look, you got to compare where we are, where we don't even make the steel that we need here in America. So the first thing is to get to the point where every amount of steel that we need to produce things in America were at 100%. That's baseline. That's like worst-case scenario, is that we have enough steel produced to satisfy the demand in America. Then the next step is let's become an exporter of steel. We shouldn't be allowing China that produces way more steel than they can consume in their own country. Because what they're going to do is they use government subsidies to make steel, to sell steel for a lot less money to basically kill their competition. And then once that competition is dead, then they can go and control the entire market.
That's true with steel. It's true with semiconductor chips. It's true with energy. We have all the energy resources we need here in the United States of America. But we have allowed foreign countries to do that. For example, in coal, we used to be the largest coal producer in America. I mean, I'm sorry, in the world, here in America, and now China is. So who do you think makes cleaner coal? America or China? Who do you think is strict? Do you think the Chinese EPA is stricter than the U.S. EPA? Do you think the Chinese version of OSHA is stricter than the American version of OSHA? We share the same planet. So if you're concerned about the environment, you want more of that to be happening here in the United States. Joe Biden did the exact opposite. He shut down LNG exports.
Germany and the Europeans gave more money to Russia for energy than they gave to Ukraine to help them fight the war against Russia. Think about how insane that is. They funded the other side of the war while publicly denouncing the fact that we weren't doing enough. We weren't sending enough hundreds of billions of dollars. And then they want us to send soldiers. Do you want to send your kids to Ukraine to die there over a dispute about land? I'm not sending my 26-year-old son there. There's no way. So President Trump talks about wanting to do peace there, and he gets lambasted as if it's our obligation, like it's our duty to send hundreds of billions of dollars to a foreign country. No, it's our duty to make certain that we protect American citizens and that we do what's in the best interest of this country.
This is the seismic shift that's happened between November 5th and today. And look, I hope the Democrats become rational. I was at the State of the Union address on Tuesday, and it actually got really uncomfortable. It got uncomfortable because I'm watching the opposite party. And I want them to be thriving. I want a thriving, competitive Democrat party to compete with us in ideas. But when you can't stand up and applaud for an 18-year-old kid that just got accepted to West Point, not because he opened the mail, but because the president of the United States did it on national TV, like anyone who has an 18-year-old has had an 18-year-old, you think, "Oh my God, that's an amazing moment." Imagine how confusing it was for him to see that half the room didn't even stand up or applaud for him.
Or a 13-year-old kid that has brain cancer that the Secret Service, the head of the Secret Service, just made him an honorary agent. And he looks down, and half the room isn't even standing and applauding for him. They've lost their ever-loving minds, let's be honest. So look, I hope the Democrats get the memo. Let's work together and solve our disputes within the margins. But ultimately, let's work for the people who built this country. Let's make certain that we protect our middle class, that we grow our middle class, that we provide opportunities like Lorenzo does every single day.
And the message to every CEO is, "Look, if Cliffs can do it, if Cliffs can stop the layoffs or the constant cutting of wages, but rather work for their people, share in the success, so as Cliffs does better, their employees do better, that you get a situation where you have a good, decent life in this country." That's what all of us should be on the same page to do. It's not enough to just say, "Hey, I can work Monday through Friday and barely get by." You got to be able to know that you can retire at some point. And when I hear my colleagues say, "We're going to raise the retirement age," those are people who've never left the desk. You may want to retire later, but your body says, "Sorry." You know, no. So we're not going to raise the retirement age.
We're not going to cut benefits to Americans. We're going to keep those benefits intact because we're looking inwardly instead of looking outwardly. That's what the media is knocking us on. And look, I don't have any problem defending our positions to put America first. And that's ultimately what we're going to do. Yeah. Look, let me just do a quick follow-up on what you have just said. I gave you the numbers. I'll give you the numbers again. A 50% price increase, that has already happened. It's not like I'm going to do it because the tariffs are coming. Already happened. It's all about the market. Steel went from $600-$ 900. That's $300 in a short period of time. Trump is in office less than two months. That's what happened. So he already did. His impact has already been felt.
That said, that $300 is the difference between us being able to hire people, pay these people, grow the business, hire more people, hire your kids, and in the future, our grandkids. Or not. Because then we don't survive. We don't make money to make payroll. And that's not a way to grow. How much that will impact you? Let's assume I'm going to buy that Toyota Camry. The MSRP says $41,359. You can check that later when we're done because I checked before. So it's less than the $50,000 that I said. So the $300, that's 0.9. 0.9 tons of steel. 0.9 of 300 is $270. So that thing will not go to $42,000. It will go to $41,500 or $41,600. It's a rounding error. 50% more in steel is a rounding error. But you are not a rounding error.
Your families, your kids, your livelihood is not a rounding error. But they are so bold. They are so aggressive that now they would like to do it with cars. You guys heard about BYD, a subsidized company by the Chinese Communist Party trying to sell cars in the United States, cars like that Toyota Camry, for less than $20,000. No car manufacturer will be able to compete. And then they say, "Whoa." But they enabled a lot of what happened with steel in the last three or four decades. Now it's hurting them. Because once you create an avenue for illegally dumped stuff, starting with steel, everything else will come through the same door. And we are the victims. If you feel like you are not affected, you are. So please think about we are not trying to do that because we are crazy people. We are not.
We know numbers. And we know the impact on the livelihood of people like yourselves, including members of the press. And I really ask the members of the press, help us broadcast the right message. Put the numbers. When we're wrong, tell us why. And we will correct ourselves. But we are more than 90% right on our direction because our direction is for employment, empowerment of middle class, and creating again the ability to have the American Dream.
We have time for one more question.
Passing the mic, I would like to take a quick moment to ask you about the cuts to Veterans Affairs. When we are looking at that on the federal level, planned 80,000 cuts. Will you answer or talk to Ohio veterans that are concerned about the impacts to the care they will be receiving? And then also to some Ohio veterans who might have lost their jobs or will lose their jobs as a part of these cuts?
Sure. So not what we're here to talk about, but I'm happy to answer the question. The VA had about 400,000 employees back in 2019. Joe Biden grew the employment to 470,000. So what Doug Collins did, because the media reports that it's Elon, as if Elon Musk is walking around telling people they're fired, it's insane. He's not doing that at all. So what Doug Collins, who's the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, has said, "Hey, we need to right-size the VA down to 400,000." Our office fields calls from government workers every single day. We get about 2,000 phone calls in Ohio and about 1,500 to 1,600 phone calls in Washington, D.C., that we answer every single day. I'll give you an example.
There are times when they get it wrong. And we have a process in place to make certain that, hey, if that happened, like that one employee should not have been terminated, we get them right back on. Because when you're trying to manage a workforce of 2.2 million people that we can't afford, we have a $36.5 trillion budget. We have to trim the size of the federal workforce. You're going to make some mistakes. But I'll give you the example that's not often talked about. I had it come to my office. I had a gentleman call our office and said, "Hey, I don't think I should have gotten fired." So I said, "Okay, well, tell me your story." And his job at the VA is to greet people. So when you walk into the VA, he greets them. "What do you need? How can I help you?
Here's where you go for this. Here's where you go for that. Here's what you need. Fill out this form." Kind of his guide, right, at the VA. I said, "Well, it's a really important job." I mean, if you've known anybody who's a veteran, you know how hard that is. In fact, how many of you served this country in the military? Raise your hand. Give them a round of applause, please. So you know the VA stuff. I mean, we don't do enough for our veterans. We need to make that process better. So I said, "Well, that's an important job. We got to make sure we restore that person's job." So I dug into it further. This particular gentleman lives in Toledo. The VA he's supposed to go to work at every day is in Parkersburg, West Virginia.
He hasn't been there in three and a half years. You can't greet people remotely. That's why he got fired. And by the way, he had a choice. "Hey, look, do your job, and maybe we'll transfer you to the VA in Toledo or maybe move closer to Parkersburg, West Virginia. It's like a four and a half hour drive." And he said, "No, I want to do the job remotely." Well, it's not a remote job. So we also had people who worked for government agencies. Imagine all of you. Imagine if you were allowed to get away with this. That had a full-time job somewhere else. I had a gentleman who gave me an example. He's a pilot that lives here in Cleveland, Ohio, full-time pilot. That's what he does all day, every day. And he's also an employee of the FAA getting a full paycheck.
He's supposed to be at work every day in Washington, D.C. Would you guys like a government job where you don't ever have to go to work and collect a paycheck? That's insane. Those are the types of things that we're rooting out. It's completely unacceptable that we have government employees that we've allowed to get away with that. We have great government employees, but we're not going to allow the good ones to get disparaged because we have people like the examples I just gave. We got to right-size the government. Look, do any of you think that you pay too little taxes? Would you like to pay more in taxes? No. Would you guys like to send $40 billion a year to foreign countries through USAID, which is the entire budget of the state of Ohio?
Do you want, when you write a check to the IRS or it comes out of your paycheck, would you like it to be used for sex change operations in Guatemala, DEI training in Ghana? Are those the things we say, "My God, thank God I pay taxes to go there?" That's insane. We paid for billions of dollars to foreign countries. That's not what I pay taxes to do. We have plenty of needs. You can drive a 10-mile radius a year, and you go to a lot of places where you have a lot of needs. We're going to take care of those people with our taxpayer dollars. We're going to do it really efficiently and really well. I want to just make one quick announcement.
Since Lourenco made an announcement that $1,000 for any Cliffs employees of the 50 vehicles that have Cliffs steel, we're going to introduce a bill on Monday that if you take out an auto loan and it's for a U.S.-made vehicle, that that interest on that auto loan will be tax-deductible. Because we would need to do everything possible to encourage the purchase of American vehicles. That's the commitment we have from this administration.
Thank you, Senator. I think that's all the time we have for questions today. Lourenco, any concluding thoughts?
Thanks so much. Look, thank you for coming. Appreciate the press coming and covering the event. To my team, hang in there. The bad times are behind us. The good times are now and ahead of us. We are going to grow this business in the next four years. We're going to be hiring people. We're going to continue to be a technologically advanced company. We don't need to sell any steel company to anyone outside of the United States. We have the technology. We have the resources. We have access to finance. We have everything. We have the best market in the world. And we have a government that understands the wishes of the people. And they are simple. So we are for simplification.
People that know me, they know that I'm a very simple guy on my line of thought. That's what we have now. What's good for you is good for the company. It's good for the country. And that's what we're going to pursue. Thanks again. And have a great day. Thanks.
Thank you, everybody. That concludes our press conference today.