Vice President Vance touts ‘golden age’ of manufacturing in SC steel visit
U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn criticized Vance’s visit
HUGER — Vice President J.D. Vance told a crowd at the Berkeley County mill for the country’s largest steel producer that America is entering “a golden age” for manufacturing.
Vance spoke Thursday at the Nucor mill in rural Huger to celebrate the first 100 days of the Trump administration.
In his 20-minute speech, the vice president categorized the administration’s controversial tariff policy as the catalyst for an incoming boom in U.S. jobs and American-made products.
“One hundred days under Donald Trump’s leadership sparks the beginning of the industrial renaissance in the United States of America,” Vance told the crowd of around 500, made up of steel workers and other invited guests.
“I believe the golden age of American manufacturing started 100 days ago, and we’re building it right here at Nucor steel in South Carolina.”
Vance leaned on his own past as the grandson of a steel worker in his hometown of Middletown, Ohio. He spoke about how his grandfather, who helped raise him, was proud of his profession and could name every American car made from Armco steel.
He told the Nucor steel workers he hopes they get the same satisfaction.
“When you see a lawn mower, a water heater, a kitchen appliance in your neighbor’s home, or your home, I hope every single one of you guys in front of me feel a sense of pride,” Vance said as workers in the crowd nodded their heads. “Because these are the products that make America work.”
The promise of a stable, well-paying job with a good pension that drove people to companies like Nucor has largely disappeared, Vance said.
This administration aims to bring them back, Vance said.
“I think we’ve got to send messages to our young people that the most interesting work — the work that’s going to challenge your mind but also allow you to work with your hands — is found at American steel mills right here in Nucor Berkeley in South Carolina,” Vance said to applause.
Vance was introduced by Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, who looked at the crowd and said, “this is red, white and blue, made in America.”
He told them it’s possible to invest in manufacturing and still protect the environment.
“We choose both,” Zeldin told the crowd. “That is the Trump EPA, delivering for the people of South Carolina and delivering for the United States of America.”
Nucor produces a quarter of new steel refined in the U.S. The company is based across the state line in Charlotte, North Carolina, but founded in South Carolina and still employs more than 2,500 people total at locations around the state.
The Berkeley plant alone employs around 1,000 people and produces 3.6 million tons of steel annually.
The company has been a consistent supporter of the Trump administration’s tariff-laden economic plan. A 25% tariff on the importers of foreign steel products went into effect March 12.
Two days ago, Nucor CEO Leon Topalian told CNBC that the company has its biggest backlog in history, specifically mentioning the Berkeley mill in the interview.
Topalian thanked the administration Thursday “for continuing to level the playing field for American steel producers.”
While Topalian continues to back the tariffs, many South Carolina industries, like the state’s multibillion-dollar auto sector, are in a state of flux as they adjust to often-changing announcements about tariffs and how they’ll affect the cost of foreign-made parts used to build vehicles here.
U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, the state’s lone Democratic congressman, has been a staunch critic of the tariffs.
Clyburn said in a statement Thursday that Trump’s second in command would be better served meeting with South Carolinians “from all walks of life.”
“Trump’s exorbitant tariffs — imposed on countless essential products without any strategy — are increasing costs, jeopardizing retirement savings, threatening jobs, and putting small businesses at risk,” Clyburn said.
“South Carolina stands to be harmed disproportionately,” the statement said.
Vance told the crowd that tariffs are part of an effort to build up middle-class jobs in America, rather than let them be outsourced to other countries.
“Do you want to ship American jobs off to the People’s Republic of China?” He asked. “Do you want to rely on foreign corporations to make the things that you need in your home and your families need every single day?”
The crowd shouted “no” in response to both questions.
“So why don’t we rebuild America’s middle class?” he asked rhetorically. “Why don’t we rebuild American manufacturing? And why don’t we rebuild American industry, just like you’re doing right here.”
Later Thursday, U.S. Sen. Linsey Graham put out a statement thanking the Trump administration for choosing Nucor Steel in South Carolina to “make the case for bringing high-paying manufacturing jobs back to America.”
Urging Americans to support Trump as he “cleans up the trade mess that’s built up over the past 60 years,” Graham pointed to Nucor as an example, saying the company has had to compete against China and other countries “dumping low-cost steel.”
Shaun covers the state legislature for the South Carolina Daily Gazette.
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
Vance about Ukraine here.
Protesters gather in Columbia as part of coast-to-coast May Day demonstration
BY: JESSICA HOLDMAN - MAY 1, 2025 7:31 PM
COLUMBIA — Some 120 South Carolinians who oppose the Trump administration lined the sidewalks of Columbia’s downtown post office as part of a series of May Day demonstrations spanning the country.
The protests held on a day commemorating the fight for workers’ rights and the national labor movement was organized by a group that calls itself the 50501 campaign, which stands for 50 protests, 50 states, one movement.
The movement, which originated online, has led to a wave of grassroots protests nationwide since President Donald Trump’s inauguration. The group has had at least four coordinated demonstrations in the past four months, including a gathering that attracted hundreds to South Carolina Statehouse grounds on President’s Day.
While signs, slogans and the issues protesters cared about Thursday went well beyond workers’ rights, organizer Sam Gibbons, of Columbia, said the group did want to highlight workers’ struggles.
At least one organizer from the Union of Southern Service Workers was in attendance and circulating flyers.
And among attendees’ variety of chants was “the U.S. mail is not for sale” in reference to suggestions by the Trump administration that the U.S. Postal Service could be privatized.
Gibbons, a 34-year-old educator, also criticized the administration’s tariff policies and potential impacts to union workers and the middle class.
If companies stop importing goods, longshoremen working at Charleston’s port could lose work, he said. And if prices go up, retail workers may be affected.
The protest occurred the same day as Vice President J.D. Vance visited a Nucor steel mill in rural Berkeley County to tout the tariffs as the administration’s attempt to bring back manufacturing jobs.
Disability rights
Angel Lee, who also helped organize the Columbia event, said she’s worried about possible changes to federal law that impacts those with disabilities. The 46-year-old is disabled and works with a nonprofit that aids those with disabilities.
Advocates have feared the outcome of a lawsuit filed last September by 17 GOP attorneys general, including South Carolina’s Alan Wilson, which challenged the Biden administration’s inclusion of gender dysphoria in a 1973 civil rights law.
The case has been on pause since Trump signed an executive order in January removing “gender ideology” as a protected disability. And a court filing last month from the 17 suing states declared they are no longer challenging Section 504’s constitutionality.
But the attorneys general did not withdraw the lawsuit as they “continue to evaluate their position,” which continues to worry advocates.
“As a disabled worker and an advocate, I know how hard we have to fight just to be seen,” she said. “All we want is to be able to work with dignity and for fair pay.”
Lee will travel to Washington, D.C., Friday to protest with other members of the movement on the National Mall.
Deportation concerns
For Margot Robinette, of Columbia, it’s the president’s immigration policy and deportation efforts that are of the greatest concern.
The 26-year-old apothecary shop worker married into a family of immigrants. Her husband is a first-generation American whose parents immigrated to the United States from Honduras, and she said it’s difficult to see those she loves living in fear that they could be deported.
Robinette has also worked alongside immigrants on a farm in California.
“Immigrants are essential workers,” she said. “Workers’ rights and immigrants’ rights intertwined; you can’t talk about one without the other.”
Miguel Torres, of Batesburg, also is the child of immigrants who came to the U.S. from the Guanajuato region of Mexico.
National Law Day
The 22-year-old retail worker attended the protest outside the post office as well as a gathering of legal professionals outside the federal courthouse in Columbia earlier in the day.
Lawyers, federal judges and the dean of the University of South Carolina law school held that separate event as part of National Law Day.
“Attacks on judges for unpopular rulings, political pressure on legal professionals and a growing distrust of the legal system threaten the very foundation of fairness and equal justice,” Columbia attorney Nekki Shutt said in kicking off the program.
U.S. District Court judges DeAndrea Gist Benjamin and Joseph Anderson then led the lawyers in a restatement of their legal oath, which Benjamin said directs legal professionals to serve “without fear or favor, without allegiance to politicians or politics, to honest judgment, regardless of financial or social standing.”
Torres called last week’s arrest of a judge in Wisconsin scary.
“The rule of law in our country is just not being respected,” he said. “Every single day on the news it seems like there’s a new executive order.”
Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan is accused of trying to help a man in her courtroom on domestic battery charges avoid immigration agents, though they arrested him outside the courthouse after a chase. The Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended the judge Tuesday.
Jessica Holdman writes about the economy, workforce and higher education. Before joining the SC Daily Gazette, she was a business reporter for The Post and Courier.
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
