U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick had a message Monday for Pennsylvanians worried by the turmoil in financial markets after President Donald Trump's tariff announcements last week ruled the global economy: "Let's give it a little time."
After a tour of Eos Energy's plant in East Pittsburgh, where the company manufactures cutting-edge batteries, McCormick acknowledged, "There's a lot of uncertainty right now," but he predicted that "over the coming days and weeks a lot of the uncertainty will be eliminated."
McCormick said that tariffs are just one part of a Republican economic strategy that also includes tax cuts, deregulation and encouraging more foreign investment. And he said voters should look at "the totality of that" when gauging Trump's agenda. He said that they need to look at a bigger picture in other ways as well.
"The tariffs are designed to address a fundamental problem, which is that we've had unfair trading relationships" even with allies like Canada, he said. "The president has laid out a path. Now I'm looking forward to see him negotiating the kind of deals that make sure we have fairness."
Economists and business experts say markets have been rocked not just by the tariffs but by uncertainty about Trump's long-term goals. Different administration officials have given different accounts of whether the tariffs are meant as a permanent policy or a bargaining chip to extract concessions, for example.
And the implementation of the tariffs — which have been levied on uninhabited islands and with little regard to actual trading policies of other countries — have baffled some.
Asked whether more clarity would have been helpful at the time the tariffs were rolled out, McCormick said, "Let's see how things play out in the next couple days and the next few weeks. But the essence of the tariffs, which is to try to bring fairness, makes sense, and now they've got to be executed in a way that is ultimately going to be good for Pennslyvania, good for the country, and that's what I'm watching."
McCormick, who came into politics by way of working as an executive for a global hedge fund firm, also drew a distinction between the behavior of financial markets and the "real economy."
If Trump could achieve a fairer trade regime, he said, "the real economy's going to be great, and if the real economy is great, the stock market is gonna be fine."
In the meantime, he sounded dubious about the idea of Congress reclaiming authority to impose tariffs. A bill proposed by Republican Chuck Grassley and Democrat Maria Cantwell would reassert Congressional authority to set trade policy; among other things it would have tariffs expire after 60 days absent Congressional approval — though Trump has said he would veto such a measure.
"I think it's pretty important that the executive branch has the ability to negotiate on behalf of the United States," he said. "So I'd be reluctant to embrace that."
McCormick hailed Eos as the kind of firm that Trump and Republicans are trying to help. The firm makes batteries that are based not on lithium, a rare-earth metal, but rather on zinc, which is found in far more locations and easier to extract. Its 120 workers and nearly two dozen robots assemble a battery every 10 seconds. And 92 percent of its materials are domestically sourced, and hopes to have the rest of it sourced in the United States with the next year.
"This is a company that is doing all that we want to do," McCormick said.
The company's expansion was helped along by more than $300 million in federal loan guarantees under the Biden Administration. The future of that program under the Trump Administration, which has sought to roll back such investments, is unclear. The company hopes to expand operations in the region. Eos CEO Joe Mastrangelo said it would not need more such aid to do so, though he said "the loan that we had was a critical building block [toward] building the company."
After touring the facility and watching robots assemble batteries alongside McCormick and other Eos executives, Mastrangelo voiced sympathy for Trump's hard-nosed approach to trade issues.
In many other countries he'd visited over the years, he said, "If you want the business in the country, you've got to put in a manufacturing facility.
"We're doing what everyone else has done."
