A local business leader joined Democratic Party representatives to talk tariffs during a visit on Thursday (February 27th) from Vice President JD Vance.
The Democratic lawmakers, including Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin, met via video to discuss tariffs and Congressman Derrick Van Orden’s support for Trump’s policies.
Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry CEO Sachin Shivaram told members that his company has been directly affected by the tariffs.
This is not the first time the CEO has come out against the policies.
However, he believes the Trump administration wants to bring back manufacturing jobs in the U.S. and help companies like WAF.
“But we are the type of company that has dealt with brutal competition from China over the past two decades,” he explained. “We have union labor, we have actually four unions, and we support organized labor. Blue-collar jobs, tough jobs. We are the company that, when anyone imagines bringing manufacturing back to America, I think they think about us.”
However, Shivaram also told the group that other companies he’s worked with don’t support the tariffs either, or they don’t say anything because they are worried about repercussions from the Trump administration.
He also mentioned that some of his employees at WAF and customers aren’t in support of Trump’s tariff policies either.
“We put out a statement against the tariffs and have written articles about this,” he noted. “And within seconds of that being published, I was contacted by one of our customers, a name that you would all recognize, expressing gratitude for speaking out and saying the types of things they want to say.”
Shivaram finished suggesting a middle ground on tariffs, but he wants to see them enacted through Congress and in areas with national consensus.
He believes in using them to support strategic defense, economic and national security, and Artificial Intelligence.
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin also included Vice President of the Organization, Sara Godlewski, and Founder of American Provenance and Natural Contract Manufacturing, Kyle LaFond.
