Vice President JD Vance visited a steel plant in South Carolina on Thursday as he heralded the launch of an “industrial renaissance” in the U.S., in part due to President Donald Trump’s moves to boost domestic industry.
Vance made the trip to Nucor Steel in Huger as part of the administration’s events marking Trump’s first 100 days in office.
“I hope every single one of you, you guys in front me, feel a sense of pride, because these are the products that actually make America work,” Vance told several hundred guests and Nucor steel workers gathered on a gravel lot outside one of the buildings at the company’s sprawling facility. “These are the products that make our citizens’ lives better.”
Nucor’s corporate leaders have cheered Trump’s tariff policies, which have shaken the global economy and proved less popular with other business leaders. The company’s stock rose 6% when the Trump administration announced new tariffs on imported steel, though the price has fluctuated since.
After an earnings call this week, Nucor CEO Leon Topalian said on CNBC that the company’s backlog of orders, which its leaders have said is 25% higher than last year at this time, served as a signal of “improving signs coming through the economy.”
It was Vance’s first visit to South Carolina, an industry-rich state that also plays a pivotal role in national politics. Trump won the state’s first-in-the-South GOP primary in 2016, which helped cement Trump’s role as a frontrunner that year, and he’s remained popular in the state ever since.
From the stage, Vance shouted out two of the state’s elected Republicans in attendance, Lt. Gov. Pam Evette and Rep. Nancy Mace. Both have been supporters of Trump and Vance, and both are expected to vie for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in the state next year.
Vance, who was accompanied on the visit and factory tour by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, said the 100-day mark for the administration also signaled “energy dominance,” adding that there needed to be “no tension” between ramping up domestic manufacturing and safeguarding the environment.
“We have started drill, baby, drilling,” Vance said. “It means cheaper gas, and it means an America that is self-reliant.”
Drilling off South Carolina’s coast has long been a controversial issue in the state, which has 187 miles (300 kilometers) of coastline along the Atlantic Ocean. Trump signed a memorandum in 2020 directing the interior secretary to prohibit drilling in the waters off both Florida coasts, and off the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina, until 2032. President Joe Biden in January moved to ban new offshore oil and gas drilling in most U.S. coastal waters, a last-minute effort to block possible action by the incoming Trump administration to expand offshore drilling.
After taking office, Trump said he had directed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to undo Biden’s ban on future offshore oil drilling on the East and West coasts, saying the last-minute action “viciously took out” more than 625 million acres (2.5 million square kilometers) offshore that could contribute to the nation’s “net worth.”
Vance’s remarks came shortly after news broke that Mike Waltz, the former GOP congressman from Florida, was out as Trump’s national security adviser, weeks after it was revealed that he had added a journalist to a Signal chat being used to discuss military plans.
Subsequently, Trump posted on social media that he would be tapping Waltz to serve as ambassador to the United Nations and that Secretary of State Marco Rubio would take over Waltz’s former duties, in addition to serving as the chief U.S. diplomat.
Vance mentioned neither development in his remarks. Zeldin did not know about the U.N. appointment until an Associated Press reporter asked for his reaction to it afterward. He thanked the reporter for being the “bearer of great news” and said he felt Waltz “would do a tremendous job” in the role.
