Misconceptions about the state of the steel industry in general and the status of the Riverdale Mills Corp. in particular were much on James Knott Jr.’s mind when he agreed to discuss where things stand the afternoon of January 29.
The Wall Street Journal
Trump’s Broken Nafta Promise
When President Trump signed his new Nafta accord last month with the leaders of Mexico and Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau almost didn’t show up. The reason: Mr. Trump still hasn’t lifted the steel and aluminum tariffs as he promised he’d do if America’s two neighbors signed a revised trade deal.
Portland Monthly Magazine
From Wire to Wine
Before Mr. Knott developed the idea of a wire lobster trap in 1957, lobstermen were using wooden traps—ones they often spent time repairing. In a 2014 interview with the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Knott says he invented a model “made out of welded wire mesh which is galvanized to protect it from the coating getting scraped off, and it’s plastic coated to prevent the Atlantic Ocean from attacking the steel.” But not everyone believed in this Harvard-educated economist’s vision. “A lot of people laughed. They said, ‘You’re never going to catch a lobster in a wire trap,’ because they’d been using wood for hundreds of years.”
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
After 38 Years, Northbridge’s Riverdale Mills Lives On
A local entrepreneur who passed away recently, James M. Knott Sr. transformed the lobstering industry. And the company he founded in 1980, Northbridge-based Riverdale Mills, continues to do well under the leadership of his son, James Jr.
The Wall Street Journal
James Knott Pioneered Modern Lobster Traps and Fended Off the EPA
James Knott helped build a better lobster trap.
In June, President Donald Trump enacted a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum from all countries except South Korea, Argentina, Brazil, and Australia. Next came a tariff on $50 billion worth of goods from China, accompanied by the threat of a tariff on another $200 billion in the future. In response, China, Mexico, the European Union, Canada, and India slapped their own tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. exports, from whiskey to machine parts to dried fruit.
MyChamplainValley.com
NAFTA Compromise Weighs Heavy on Governors, Canadian Premiers
STOWE, Vt. – The 42nd annual Conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers is underway at Stowe Mountain Lodge Resort in Stowe.
In New England, the trade war with China is hitting twice as hard. Not only have lobster exports been hit with tariffs, so has the steel used to make the traps.
The Boston Globe
A Lobster Trap Captures the Complexities of a Global Trade War
NORTHBRIDGE — Every month, Jim Knott Jr. orders at least a thousand tons of steel rods for his wire factory here in the Blackstone Valley. But the shipment from Canada that arrived in June carried an unwelcome addition: an extra charge of $54,000 to cover a new tariff President Trump imposed on foreign steel as part of his aggressive trade policy.
NEWS CENTER Maine
Steel Tariffs Could Impact Lobster Traps, Industry
PORTLAND (NEWS CENTER Maine) — The lobster industry could be trapped in tariffs. The Maine International Trade Center is surveying lobstermen in the state, who’ve told them they are being pinched by tariffs on lobster exported to China, and by steel and aluminum taxes on lobster traps.