Trump supporters imperil $4 billion aluminum plant central to his industrial push

Mining

Aug 14

A cow wearing a gas mask is the first sign something may be amiss in Inola, Oklahoma. “Protect Our Farms. #StopTheInolaSmelter,” reads the text below the image, splashed across a billboard towering ...

Source Link

Disclaimer: Investing carries risk. This is not financial advice. The above content should not be regarded as an offer, recommendation, or solicitation on acquiring or disposing of any financial products, any associated discussions, comments, or posts by author or other users should not be considered as such either. It is solely for general information purpose only, which does not consider your own investment objectives, financial situations or needs. TTM assumes no responsibility or warranty for the accuracy and completeness of the information, investors should do their own research and may seek professional advice before investing.

Most Discussed

{"basename":"","ssrTDKData":{"titleTemplate":"%s - Tiger Brokers","title":"Tiger Brokers HK | Online Trading in stocks, bonds & ETFS","description":"Discover Tiger Brokers HK, an online trading platform for stocks&ETFs, options&futures, bonds and crypto. Open an account to enjoy low commission trading today!","keywords":"tiger trading,tiger security,tiger broker hk,tigers co ltd,tiger trade hk,tiger brokers hk,stock broker,securities broker,online brokerage,hong kong broker,hk broker,online stock trading,online trading platform,stock trading platforms,trading application,stock trading,stock trading hong kong,buying stocks in hong kong,tiger brokers","social":{"ogDescription":"Discover Tiger Brokers HK, an online trading platform for stocks&ETFs, options&futures, bonds and crypto. Open an account to enjoy low commission trading today!","ogImage":"https://c1.itigergrowtha.com/portal5/static/media/og-logo.0a0bd8dc.png","ogUrl":"https://www.gotigerhk.com/news/2659455126"},"companyName":"Tiger Brokers"},"pageData":{"isMobile":false,"isTiger":false,"isTTM":true,"region":"HKG","license":"TBHK","edition":"fundamental"},"isCrawlerRequest":true,"__swrFallback__":{"@#url:\"https://stock-news.skytigris.cn/v3/news\",params:#id:\"2659455126\",edition:\"fundamental\",auth_exemption:1,,,undefined,":{"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/2659455126?lang=en_US&edition=fundamental","thumbnail":"https://www.mining.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/AdobeStock_290804755-e1763124611238.jpeg","is_english":true,"pubTime":"2026-08-14 12:34","share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","id":"2659455126","market":"fut","top_or_hot":-1,"title":"Trump supporters imperil $4 billion aluminum plant central to his industrial push","media":"Mining","content":"<div>\n<p>A cow wearing a gas mask is the first sign something may be amiss in Inola, Oklahoma. \n“Protect Our Farms. #StopTheInolaSmelter,” reads the text below the image, splashed across a billboard towering ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://www.mining.com/web/trump-supporters-imperil-4-billion-aluminum-plant-central-to-his-industrial-push/\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n","source":"mining_highlight","html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Trump supporters imperil $4 billion aluminum plant central to his industrial push</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nTrump supporters imperil $4 billion aluminum plant central to his industrial push\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2026-08-14 12:34 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://www.mining.com/web/trump-supporters-imperil-4-billion-aluminum-plant-central-to-his-industrial-push/><strong>Mining</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>A cow wearing a gas mask is the first sign something may be amiss in Inola, Oklahoma. \n“Protect Our Farms. #StopTheInolaSmelter,” reads the text below the image, splashed across a billboard towering ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://www.mining.com/web/trump-supporters-imperil-4-billion-aluminum-plant-central-to-his-industrial-push/\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":"BK4535","symbol_name":"淡马锡持仓","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://www.mining.com/web/trump-supporters-imperil-4-billion-aluminum-plant-central-to-his-industrial-push/","article_id":"2659455126","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":["https://www.mining.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/AdobeStock_290804755-e1763124611238.jpeg"],"rights":{"source":"mining_highlight","url":"https://www.mining.com/web/trump-supporters-imperil-4-billion-aluminum-plant-central-to-his-industrial-push/","rn_cache_url":null,"directOrigin":true},"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=2659455126","pubTimestamp":1786682040,"columns":[],"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"mining_highlight","name":"MINING.COM"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"Backlash underscores the challenges of revitalizing US industrial might in an age of NIMBYism.","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"mining.com","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"BK4535":"淡马锡持仓","PICK":"iShares MSCI Global Metals & Mining Producers ETF","DBB":"基础金属ETF-PowerShares"},"translate_title":"特朗普的支持者危及价值 40 亿美元的铝厂，这是他推动工业发展的核心","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"DBB":0.66,"PICK":0.66},"content_text":"A cow wearing a gas mask is the first sign something may be amiss in Inola, Oklahoma. \n“Protect Our Farms. #StopTheInolaSmelter,” reads the text below the image, splashed across a billboard towering over one of the main highways to this prairie town (population: 1,890.) The smelter in question: a $4 billion aluminum processing plant touted by President Donald Trump as part of his push to revive the industry in the US.\nIn a June 29 letter, Trump urged the town’s council to approve the project “without delay, so that together we may strengthen our national security, supercharge our economy, and lead our Nation boldly into a new Golden Age of American greatness.” \nInstead, the five-person board of trustees for Inola, located just east of Tulsa, voted unanimously that day to impose a moratorium on the project. The smelter, a joint venture between the United Arab Emirates’ state-owned Emirates Global Aluminium PJSC and Chicago-based Century Aluminum Co., would be the first new US plant in nearly 50 years to process aluminum that’s derived from raw material rather than recycled.\n\nEGA, Century Aluminum team up to build first US smelter in 50 years\n\nOpponents of the plant say they’re afraid toxic emissions from the facility will damage agricultural land in Inola, which has dubbed itself the “Hay Capital the World” in a nod to the prized Bluestem prairie grass that grows there. There’s also concern that the plant’s intensive power needs will drive up electricity prices. The controversy has surfaced in the Oklahoma governor’s race, with one candidate in the upcoming Republican primary supporting the project and the other opposing it.\nInola’s backlash underscores the challenges of revitalizing US industrial might in an age of NIMBYism, showing that Trump’s sway has limits even in conservative states. The outcry over the smelter comes amid growing wave of opposition to energy-thirsty data centers in red and blue states alike.\nThat kind of pushback threatens Trump’s efforts to restore manufacturing that has largely been lost to overseas competition. Once the world’s top aluminum producer, the US has seen the sector hollowed out by plant closures, leaving the country reliant on imports of the metal used in everything from iPhones to fighter jets as the Iran war roils foreign supply. For the Inola project to move forward, the developers will need to assuage the town council’s environmental concerns and secure a long-term contract for affordable power — an outcome that isn’t guaranteed, industry analysts said. \n“Are there limits to the transformative power of Trumpism? Absolutely,” said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who specializes in US economic competitiveness. “This project is a great example of that.” \nKush Desai, a spokesman for the White House, said in an emailed statement that “mindless left-wing” activism has “done enough damage to America’s industrial base.”\n“The Trump administration is committed to reshoring critical manufacturing and strengthening our national and economic security,” Desai said.\nLike many in Inola, Joleta Ingersoll, who co-owns a 12,000-acre (4,856—hectare) ranch a few miles outside the town, voted for Trump. Though she still supports him, she worries that hydrogen fluoride — a hazardous gas that can damage the skin and lungs — emitted from the aluminum plant would poison the Bluestem prairie hay she grows and the cattle that eat the crop.\nIf the smelter is built, “we’re done,” Ingersoll said in an interview from the ranch’s wood-paneled clubhouse. “What you see right here is not going to be here anymore.”\nWhile some Inola residents have expressed worries about the facility’s electricity use and the partnership that gives foreign-owned EGA a 60% stake, one of primary concerns is the plant’s emissions of hydrogen fluoride. Cows that eat hay contaminated with the chemical can develop fluorosis, a condition that can destroy the animals’ teeth and create skeletal deformities.\nAlarm grew after the the company, in a filing with the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, applied to emit 425 tons of hydrogen fluoride annually. The joint venture partners say the actual amount the facility emits will be much lower, adding that they have a financial incentive to capture the chemical because it can be re-used for smelting.\nZiad Fares, an EGA executive and project director for Oklahoma Primary Aluminum, the official name of the joint venture, said it’s working to address the community’s concerns. The plant will be modeled after EGA’s Al Taweelah plant in Abu Dhabi, which the company says is recognized as one of the best-performing in the world. Technological advancements will also reduce the facility’s electricity use, according to the company.\nThe company “was not expecting to have a backlash to that extent,” Fares said in an interview, adding the project is slated for an area zoned for heavy industries. “What we will be bringing is our latest and greatest technology.”\nFares said the moratorium isn’t expected to have an impact on the project’s timing. The joint venture partners have said they expect the plant to open around 2030. \nThe smelter, which was touted by the White House in May 2025 as part of $200 billion in deals secured by the president during a visit to the UAE, is set to be the largest in the US, producing 750,000 tons of aluminum a year. That would more than double US production of the metal.\nToday only four smelters remain in the US, where about 60% of the aluminum it uses is imported, mostly from Canada and the UAE. Global supplies have been constrained since Iranian drones damaged aluminum plants in the UAE and Bahrain, sending prices for the metal soaring earlier this year. \n\nAluminum’s US comeback hinges on power, not tariffs, industry advocates say\n\n“The US government has realized that if we are dependent on foreign sources of aluminum, we’re potentially at risk,” said Matt Aboud, a senior vice president at Century Aluminum. \nThough the Trump administration has moved to bolster domestic aluminum production by imposing tariffs on imports of the metal, Aboud said the joint venture’s financial projections for the project don’t assume the duties will stay in place over the long term.\nOn a recent weekday morning in Inola, red and white yard signs proclaiming “No Smelter” and “Save Our Farms” dotted the tiny downtown.\n“I think we’re a political ping-pong ball,” Scott Devers, the town’s administrator, said in an interview. “We want what’s right for our community first, and then if we can help the country out, we will.”\nThe 60-day pause allows time for additional environmental analysis to be done on hydrogen fluoride emissions from the plant, Devers said. The moratorium will end Sept. 28, he added, because an official notice was published in a local paper in late July. \nWhile Devers spoke positively about the smelter, he said that whether the council votes to renew the moratorium will depend on whether details about the plant’s emissions are enough to ease the community’s concerns.\nAt the single-story town hall building, Larry Grigg, a member of Inola’s board of trustees, said the issue has divided longtime friends and even family members. While he said he supports the plant “if it’s safe,” he voted for the 60-day moratorium. A proposal for a longer pause drew threats of legal action from Oklahoma Primary Aluminum.\nGubernatorial politics are also playing a role in the battle over the smelter. Outgoing Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt is in favor of the project, and Mike Mazzei, a Republican candidate to replace him, announced he was supporting the project just hours before Trump endorsed him in May. His primary opponent, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, filed a lawsuit seeking to block the smelter days later. \n“The controlling hand behind the largest smelter ever proposed on American soil belongs not to Oklahomans, nor even to Americans, but to a foreign sovereign more than 7,000 miles away,” Drummond wrote in the petition.\nThe two candidates are heading to an Aug. 25 runoff after securing about 26% of the vote each, putting them in a dead heat.\nThe town’s vote to impose the moratorium on the project came after a tense six-hour meeting.\nAmong those who spoke in favor of the smelter was Audrey Robertson, an Energy Department assistant secretary. She said the plant, the largest Oklahoma economic development project, would bring thousands of jobs while meeting environmental standards. \n“Build it at Mar-a-Lago,” someone in the crowd jeered. \nUltimately, the plant’s fate may come down to power prices. Aluminum smelting is an energy-intensive process, and electricity can account for roughly a third of the cost of producing the metal.The Inola project will require about 1.2 gigawatts of electricity — enough to power roughly 900,000 US homes. As soaring energy bills become a political flashpoint, any industrial project with high power consumption is at risk of public backlash.\nAmerican Electric Power Co.’s Public Service Company of Oklahoma is in final negotiations with the Inola smelter developers, and new power generation projects will help serve growth “without burdening other customers,” a spokesperson for the utility said. Any agreement would go before the state utility regulator for approval.\nStill, elevated aluminum prices leave room to absorb high electricity costs, according to Greg Wittbecker, a former executive at Alcoa Corp. who’s now an industry consultant. While supply bottlenecks from the Iran war may dissipate, aluminum demand is expected to grow in the long term, driven by its use in electric-vehicle batteries and data-center cooling systems. \nRegardless of the cost of power, companies face financial hurdles to build or restart US aluminum plants. Alcoa, the top US producer, has concentrated most of its output of non-recycled aluminum in Canada and Europe. Some firms have sold shuttered smelter sites to companies developing data centers.\nThe advantage of Century’s smelter project is its partnership with EGA, which spent decades improving technology to become more efficient, according to Wells Fargo analyst Timna Tanners. \n“The EGA smelters are renowned for using less electricity than the legacy ones,” said Tanners.\nAmong those counting on the project are Ryan Plotkin, whose company signed an agreement with EGA and Century Aluminum in February to explore the development of a fabrication plant near the smelter. The facility will use hot aluminum from the plant to manufacture specialty items like wire rod.\nHis family owns M-D Building Products, a 106-year-old aluminum manufacturing facility in Oklahoma City. The plant makes products including floor transitions and weather stripping.\nAs Plotkin stood on the factory floor last month, a conveyor belt fed a massive cylinder of aluminum into an oven that heated it close to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (538 Celsius.) The cylinder was then sent to an extrusion press, where narrow strips of aluminum to be used as stair edges poured out like Play-Doh. \nNearby, a rack held several of the cylinders. Plotkin picked up a label showing they were “Made in the UAE.”\n“Soon this will say made in Oklahoma,” he said. \n(By Ari Natter, Jacob Lorinc and Yvonne Yue Li)","kind":"highlight","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":false,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"-1","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"isVideo":false,"video":null,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":0,"need_auth":false,"need_login_tip":false,"code":"91000000","status":"200"}}}