Thank you very much. It's an honour to be invited here to participate in this very special, important meeting today.
I'm from Sault Ste. Marie. We have two major steel players there, which many people are familiar with, Algoma Steel and Tenaris Algoma Tubes, which has operations in the Soo and Calgary.
We're in a unique situation with about 60% of the exports from Algoma Steel going to the United States. I want to thank people like Randy, Tracey, and some other folks. We travelled together down to Washington on two separate occasions to tell the story, which the media dubbed the “charm offensive”, over the last 10 months.
Algoma is a perfect example of the integration of NAFTA and how it works so well. Steel is made by steelworkers in the Soo, but it's made with coal from coal miners, as well as iron from iron miners, from four states. It's put into the transportation network. It travels across the bridge, comes through the ports. It's made into steel, and then it goes back into the supply chain into auto, into manufacturing, into defence.
One question I want to ask Ken and Sean is how these kinds of tariffs are going to negatively affect the United States and the workers there. In The Washington Post today they talk about the first layoffs in the United States related to steel tariffs. A nail company down in the States just lost 60 employees. They're set to close probably in a few months.
I would like to hear some comments on the negative effects these tariffs are going to have on the Americans.