A steel plant in Dearborn went idle this week, citing decreased demand in the automotive market. That’s despite promises from President Donald Trump to make the domestic steel industry competitive through tariffs on foreign steel.
Around 600 workers at the Cleveland Cliffs-owned Dearborn Works plant are at risk of losing their jobs. Michigan Public reporter Sarah Cwiek spoke to Stateside about why this is happening, and what it all means.
Why is Cleveland Cliffs idling this particular plant?
Cleveland Cliffs made the announcement that it’s idling Dearborn Works in March. The company is making some larger adjustments in terms of where it’s producing steel, and how much, across the country. But what’s interesting about Dearborn Works is that the company specifically cited weak demand from the automotive industry — which is that plant’s biggest customer by far — as the reason why they’re pursuing this shutdown right now.
It’s important to note that Cleveland Cliffs isn’t completely shutting the facility down. It’s keeping the finishing shop open, for example, and some other parts of the plant will continue to operate. But the core part of the plant, where they actually make the steel, is what’s affected by this.
Is this plant shutting down permanently or is production just paused? What does the timeline look like?
It’s not totally clear at this point. Cleveland Cliffs has said it’s a temporary move, and they expect to get Dearborn Works up and running again in the future. But the company didn’t give any sort of timeline for that. So it’s fair to say right now that even if this isn’t a permanent shutdown, it’s an indefinite one.
What do Dearborn Works workers and their union representatives say about this? What options are there for the workers who suddenly don’t have a shift to work?
The UAW — specifically UAW Local 600 in Dearborn — represents the workers at this plant. Around 600 union workers got notices that they’d be laid off during the idling earlier this year.
Local 600 leaders have said that they were “blindsided” by the announcement, and called the situation “chaos” when the idling was first announced. They said they were going to try to find other positions for the laid-off workers, but also said it would likely be difficult because few of the other companies they work with locally are hiring right now.
The laid-off workers will get money out of a union compensation pool. But because there are so many of them, and it’s a fixed pot of money, that probably won’t last long. So this leaves workers facing a lot of uncertainty and possibly a lot of hardship, too.
President Trump has said he’s raising tariffs on foreign-made steel to support the domestic steel industry. But this particular plant doesn’t seem to be benefitting. Why is that?
This is a complicated situation. Whenever a major manufacturer makes a decision like this, there are usually a lot of factors playing into it. There are other things going on here, like an excess inventory of the type of steel Dearborn Works makes, and a larger restructuring going on at Cleveland Cliffs.
But it’s also fair to say that tariffs play a role here. President Trump has put 25% tariffs on foreign cars, and 50% tariffs on foreign steel. His reasoning is that this will protect the domestic steel and automotive industries from overseas competitors, keep jobs here, and rebuild those industries in the U.S.
But this gets really complicated. With the American automakers, for example, they may build a lot of their cars here, but often the parts come from outside the country. So they’re dealing with tariffs on those parts, and also demand issues in the marketplace because, with uncertainty about tariff impacts and the larger economy, a lot of consumers are watching and waiting for now (note: car sales were up very marginally in the first half of 2025, but analysts overall expect a year-over-year decline once tariff impacts truly kick in, in the third quarter).
So a plant like Dearborn Works, which is selling mainly to the automotive industry, is dealing with that situation on the demand side, plus more production costs on the supply side. That’s according to Hilary Lewis with the non-profit group Industrious Labs, which advocates for cleaner heavy industry.
“If their buyers have all these new tariffs they have to pay, and American steel is getting more expensive, it's going to have a negative impact on how much steel a company like Cleveland Cliffs is able to sell,” Lewis said.
It’s important to note here that Cleveland Cliffs did express optimism that in the longer run, President Trump’s tariff policies will ultimately strengthen production in the U.S. But it’s hard to predict if or when that will happen. And in the shorter term, the company is feeling the pinch from tariffs as well as other economic forces.
Michigan Public contacted both the White House and the U.S. Trade Representative’s office for comment on this story; neither replied.
How do those who live near Dearborn Works feel about it pausing production? How has this affected them?
There are two schools of thought here. 600 jobs is a lot, and that’s going to have a ripple effect in the community beyond just the people who are directly affected.
But Dearborn Works is located in an area, near the Ford Rouge complex in Dearborn, where there’s a lot of heavy industry. And the community suffers from that in terms of air pollution, and its impacts on things like asthma rates and other health conditions.
Natalie Sampson, a professor of public health at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, said this is about a lot more than Dearborn Works or any other single industrial facility. It’s about the cumulative impacts of all those places in one concentrated area.
Sampson said if you talk to people who live in the community, they know who the good and bad actors are.
“And they'll tell you straight up who are the good neighbors, who are the not so good neighbors,” she said. “But we are at a point where we need to get everybody up to speed on being a good neighbor, because it's just not acceptable.”
By getting people up to speed, Sampson means that due to the cumulative effects of pollution over many years, all producers need to cut down on emissions and move to cleaner, more advanced production methods.
But with the Trump administration focused on both loosening environmental regulations and subsidizing some of the dirtiest industrial materials like coal, the prospects for that look pretty grim at the national level. So for some in the community, the idling of Dearborn Works comes as a relief in that way, because it’s taking a big industrial manufacturer offline — at least for now.
