One of the largest American steel producers is leading the charge in promoting the domestic automotive industry.
Ohio-based Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (CLF) recently announced a new companywide program, the “Buy American” incentive, to reward its nearly 30,000 employees for supporting domestic industry.
Under this program, Cleveland-Cliffs employees who buy or lease a new American-built vehicle with substantial Cliffs’ steel content in calendar year 2025 will receive a $1,000 cash bonus from the company for their purchase.
The company did not explicitly define how much steel constitutes a “substantial” amount in a specific car but mentioned that cars “produced in a plant outside of the United States, or that use a significant amount of imported flat-rolled steel” don’t qualify for the incentive and that “further guidance regarding vehicle eligibility will be communicated directly to employees.”
Partially assembled vehicles, including the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and GMC Sierra 1500, at the General Motors assembly plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana, US. Ohio-based Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. recently announced a new program that gives $1,000 cash bonuses for buying cars using its steel.
In a statement, Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves said that the gesture is the company’s way of doing its part to “support President Trump’s long-term vision of bringing manufacturing back to the United States.”
“This incentive is a small token of our appreciation for the Administration’s ‘America-First’ agenda and serves as recognition that our employees, as American consumers, will help power the resurgence of domestic manufacturing,” Goncalves said. “We hope that other companies will follow suit and do their part to incentivize consumption of American-made products.”
At a joint press conference with U.S. Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH), Goncalves said that the incentive would apply to about 50 models made in the U.S. but does not entirely consist of cars made by domestic automakers like General Motors (GM) , Ford (F) or Stellantis (STLA) .
Vehicles from General Motors’ GMC brand, as well as Toyota’s (TM) Camry sedan (built at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky plant in Georgetown, Kentucky) and Tundra pickup truck (built at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Texas (TMMTX) plant in San Antonio, Texas), were visible behind the stage at the press conference.
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For competitive reasons, the CEO did not identify all eligible vehicles under this program. However, he did mention that the list—which is only available to employees—includes trucks, SUVs, sedans, and electric vehicles.
“We can’t understand the common factors moving parts across the border between the United States and Mexico seven or eight times before the final vehicle is assembled,” Goncalves said. “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.”
At the press conference, Moreno applauded Cleveland-Cliffs’ incentive program and encouraged other companies to follow suit, noting that such moves are important to promoting domestic manufacturing.
“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?” Moreno asked.
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The Cleveland-Cliffs incentive comes as President Trump imposed 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, which could have significant ramifications for the auto industry. Trump paused those tariffs until April 2 for Mexican and Canadian goods covered by the United States-Mexico-Canada-Agreement, or USMCA.
At the press conference, Senator Moreno emphasized the importance of American manufacturing, noting that its industrial power has helped them in tough situations, such as the domestic war effort during World War II, which he emphasized was spearheaded by the auto and steel industries.
“Despite not having the same advanced technology that the Germans and the Japanese had [during World War II], do you know what we could do? We could make a lot of shit really fast,” Moreno said. “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, if any other conflict like that ever happened, we don’t have the industrial might we once had, and we’re gonna change course on it really, really fast.”
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