Ohio Democrats

Donate

News

NEW: Husted-Backed Tariffs are Costing Ohio Manufacturer Millions in Business, Threatening 221+ Ohio Jobs

October 16, 2025

Columbus Dispatch: “The company recently reached out to […] Sen. Husted’s office [who] told The Dispatch that Husted had passed along Tosoh’s concerns to the administration”

Columbus, Ohio — When a Grove City manufacturing company told Senator Husted that the tariffs he supports are costing it millions of dollars in business, Husted’s only response was that he “passed along” the concern to the administration, according to new reporting from Columbus Dispatch. 

This pathetic response comes as the Husted-supported tariffs are hammering Ohio soybean farmers, while the taxpayer-funded bailout to Argentina is set to double to $40 billion, even as its soybean industry undercuts American farmers. 

See for yourself: 

Columbus Dispatch: Trump tariffs cost Grove City manufacturing company Tosoh SMD, Inc. millions this year

  • A Grove City manufacturing company has lost million of dollars to tariffs imposed by President Trump this year, cutting into the company’s bottom line and causing it to take cost-saving measures, an executive recently told The Dispatch
  • Tosoh SMD Inc., which employs 221 people at its manufacturing plant in Grove City, produces components that are crucial for semiconductor and solar panel manufacturing along with powdered metals. Their parts go off to big names in the tech world like Samsung, Texas Instruments and Intel.
  • But while Intel has had significant attention from Ohio and the federal government, including by the Trump administration buying a 10% stake in the company in August, Tosoh has been left to navigate the changing landscape of tech manufacturing and tariffs mostly on its own.
  • In just half a year, Tosoh has lost over $4 million to tariffs, or around 5% of its annual revenue, according to Joe Buckfeller, the president and chief operating officer of Tosoh SMD.
  • “I don’t really think what next year is gonna bring. It’s gonna put us in a hole,” he said.
  • The company gets its aluminum from Japan and France, incurring a 50% tariff. Its copper comes from China, which may be facing tariffs as high as 100% starting on Nov. 1.
  • It could leave the company at a disadvantage. Its overseas competitors don’t have to weather U.S. tariffs for their materials, while Tosoh’s customers can import replacements for the company’s products at lower tariff rates.
  • “This disparity undermines our ability to compete and threatens our position in the global semiconductor supply chain,” Tosoh’s management wrote in a Sept. 11 letter to Grove City Mayor Ike Stage.
  • And relief, so far, is nowhere in sight. Tosoh’s customers are unwilling to pay more, so the company has to eat the tariff costs. And there are no American companies that make the high-purity aluminum Tosoh needs, so it has no choice but to buy overseas, according to Buckfeller.
  • Unlike in Trump’s first term, there is no formal tariff exemption process for companies like Tosoh to use. Instead, the company recently reached out to Ohio’s U.S. House delegation, Sens. Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted, members of the Ohio General Assembly and Grove City Mayor Ike Stage in an effort to find a solution to their tariff woes.
  • […] A spokesperson from Sen. Husted’s office told The Dispatch that Husted had “passed along” Tosoh’s concerns to the administration.

Washington Post: Bessent says bailout for Argentina will double to boost U.S. influence in region

  • The Trump administration is working to arrange private-sector financing for Argentina that would double the total U.S. financial lifeline for the embattled South American nation, part of a broader effort to swing the region to the right politically, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday.
  • The U.S. government authorized an extraordinary $20 billion currency swap this month — essentially a loan — to prop up the sagging Argentine peso, which has fallen more than 24 percent against the dollar this year. Bessent said Wednesday that the administration was marshaling an additional $20 billion from banks and sovereign wealth funds to help Argentina make its foreign debt payments.
  • But keeping the peso at an unnaturally high level has hurt exports and widened the trade deficit, leaving Argentina short of the dollars needed to service its foreign debt.
  • Economists have questioned the Trump administration’s decision to extend financial aid to a country with a checkered repayment history. Argentina has defaulted or restructured its sovereign debt five times.
  • The bailout also has been controversial among some of Trump’s supporters, especially in rural areas. Soybean farmers, in particular, are irked over Argentina’s efforts to replace them as a supplier to China, the world’s largest importer of the row crop.
  • Milei’s government in September suspended a tax on exports, which made Argentine soybeans more attractive to Chinese buyers. That move left American farmers grumbling over lost sales, concerns that Trump hopes to assuage with a multibillion farm aid program.

###