Before a crowd of thousands, Republican front-runner Donald Trump made a campaign promise not often heard in these parts anymore: a pledge to bring back Pittsburgh’s steel industry.
“Steel, we’re bringing back,” he told an enthusiastic audience gathered at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center on Wednesday evening (many waiting were turned away by the Secret Service, which cut off the crowd at 4,500). “Coal — clean coal, clean coal. We’re bringing it back.”
Mr. Trump returned to that promise repeatedly, noting last week’s announcement by U.S. Steel that it would lay off up to one-quarter of its non-union workforce. The company has cited imports from China and slumping demand for pipe from the natural gas industry.
“We’re going to build United States Steel back,” Mr. Trump said. And as he has done throughout the campaign, Mr. Trump blamed declining U.S. manufacturing employment on poorly negotiated trade deals.
“I sell condos for tens of millions of dollars to people in China,” he said. “I’m not angry at China’s leaders. I’m angry at our leaders for being so damn stupid.”
Blaming China for the woes of U.S. manufacturing has been a bipartisan pursuit: Earlier this week, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton reacted to the U.S. Steel layoffs by promising to go “toe to toe with China’s top leaders.” And manufacturing in the Pittsburgh region has been ailing for decades. Locally, the sector lost 15,000 jobs in the past decade alone, according to federal data.
But economists have cited a number of factors beyond foreign competition for steel’s decline locally. Among them: dysfunctional labor relations, hesitancy about investing in new technology, and competition from non-unionized Southern states. And Mr. Trump made his remarks in a city that prides itself on having recovered from steel’s collapse.
(Also potentially awkward was a reference Mr. Trump made to former Penn State University football coach Joe Paterno. “How’s Joe Paterno?” he asked. “Are we going to bring that back?” Mr. Paterno died in 2012. His campaign said after the event that Mr. Trump was referring to a statue of Mr. Paterno removed at Penn State.)
Still, the crowd reacted warmly to Mr. Trump’s promises, and polls consistently show that his appeal has been strongest among working-class voters without college educations. For many in that group, the “eds and meds” economy may never have delivered the kind of high-paying job the manufacturing sector once provided.
The crowd seemed somewhat smaller than the estimated 8,500 people Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders drew to the same room two weeks ago. The Secret Service told a Post-Gazette reporter that it cut off the crowd at 4,500 people.
Mr. Trump also aired some criticism of the process by which Pennsylvania awards delegates to Republican presidential candidates. “Whoever wins get 17 delegates” in the state, he said, but the state’s 54 other delegates are elected independently, and need not commit to any candidate. “I’m not blaming Pennsylvania, I’m not blaming anything,” Mr. Trump said. But “it’s a corrupt system.”
In other states, Mr. Trump, a political outsider, has struggled to recruit delegates to his cause. His chief Republican rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, has had more success.
The speech otherwise consisted of familiar talking points, led by his proposal — wildly cheered by the crowd — to build a wall separating the United States from Mexico, and to have the Mexican government pay for construction.
Mr. Trump also singled out the media for criticism. “The media, they are the worst,” he said, prompting the crowd to boo lustily.
Earlier in the evening, Mr. Trump appeared at an event in Oakland. His 52-minute conversation with Fox News television host Sean Hannity in front of a packed audience of about 2,200 at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum was mostly uneventful, with Mr. Trump breaking no new policy ground. As with the Downtown event, his mentions of Mexico prompted audience chants of “Build the wall!”
He tried to fire up the audience at one point, with prodding by Mr. Hannity, who offered him a Terrible Towel to twirl, much to the crowd’s delight.
There were scattered protests during the taping. Three people unfurled a Mexican flag and a lone protester raised a Soviet Union flag and walked out singing. Most vocally, eight college-age adults dressed in black who stood up during the audience question-and-answer session raised their middle fingers and chanted an epithet at Mr. Trump as they left.
One of the more interesting moments of the afternoon occurred before Mr. Trump was onstage.
After Mr. Hannity greeted the crowd, he wanted to make a point about improving the country for young people. He asked a 14-year-old girl in the front row if she knew why “we need to save the country.” The girl answered: “So we don’t have a terrorist and we can beat them and hit them ...”
Chris Potter: cpotter@post-gazette.com; Sean Hamill: shamill@post-gazette.com.
First Published: April 14, 2016, 4:15 a.m.
