00:00And having met a few workers here at Nucor, I hope you all feel the exact same pride in the steel you produce and in the products that come out of it.
00:10When you see bridges you drive over or the foundations of the buildings that our families live and work in,
00:17when you see a lawnmower, a water heater, a kitchen appliance in your neighbor's homes or in your home,
00:22I hope every single one of you, you guys and you guys in front of me, feel a sense of pride, however small,
00:30because these are the products that actually make America work.
00:34These are the products that make our citizens' lives better.
00:43And I hope you feel not just pride in the work that you do, I hope you feel a little patriotic too,
00:48because this is America's national heritage.
00:53It's making things.
00:54From Alexander Hamilton to Henry Clay, from Ford's auto workers to the steel workers here this very afternoon,
01:01America has always been a nation that builds.
01:05The Empire State Building, the Hoover Dam, the Saturn V,
01:09every single one of those great accomplishments were impossible without the might of American industry
01:15and, yes, the hard work of American steel workers.
01:18But let's be honest, for a couple decades, though, our leaders forgot about that core part of American national identity.
01:32They decided that America would no longer be a manufacturing power.
01:37Instead, we'd let the rest of the world make the necessary things that we needed for our homes and for our families.
01:44And when a nation decides to de-industrialize, my friends, you know what else it stops using?
01:49The intermediate goods, central to that manufacturing, the things like steel that you all make right here at Nucor.
01:57So we stopped making the things that we needed.
01:59We stopped making as many cars.
02:01We stopped making appliances.
02:03We stopped building new homes and buildings so the cost of housing skyrocketed in our communities.
02:08And even this company, Nucor Steel, you know what the leadership told me just a couple of short minutes ago?
02:14That there was a West Virginia facility, a beautiful, high-tech, Nucor manufacturing facility making great American steel
02:22and giving workers good jobs in the process.
02:25That steel facility, that project, sat idle for years under the Biden administration's crushing environmental regulations and environmental rules.
02:34So when our leadership decides that Americans don't want to make anything, you know what we do?
02:39We cost great businesses and great corporations like Nucor a lot of money.
02:44We cost great workers their wages.
02:46And we cost a lot of people their jobs.
02:49And that was the policy of the administration that came before us.
02:52But I'm proud that we are now 101 days into an administration that wants to invest in you,
02:59that wants to build the future with you.
03:01And when Americans see a beautiful bridge or a beautiful building, we all ought to look at it and say,
03:07that was made with American hands and built with great American steel, right?
03:19And that is exactly what the Trump administration promises to do.
03:24Now, I want to say that recently, we should have learned a very hard lesson about what happens
03:31when you ship all of your industries and all the things you need to countries that don't like you.
03:35Now, I learned.
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