On the banks of the Ohio River in a rural corner of one of America’s poorest states sit two factories, one next to the other. 

One is open. The other is shuttered. Both cut to the heart of what Donald Trump hopes he can do to transform America’s industrial base.

Ravenswood, West Virginia, is a town built on aluminium. Since the 1950s, the wonder-metal has kept this place on the map.

Once upon a time, the metal itself was produced here. A massive smelting plant dominated the skyline, and inside, huge furnaces, transforming American aluminium ore (alumina) into the metal we recognise.

The newly smelted metal was then sent by river, rail and road to other factories dotted across the country to be cast – turned to sheet and coil for the nation’s cars, planes, trucks and so much more.

Kaiser Aluminium closed its smelters in 2009. The plant now sits idle. Fencing surrounds it; grass partially obscures the entrance, where hundreds of workers would once have passed.

Two hundred metres down the road, there is a different story.

Constellium Ravenswood is one of the world’s largest factories of its kind.

With over a thousand employees it produces plate, sheet and coiled aluminium for numerous industries: aerospace, defence, transportation, marine and more.

Its products are custom designed for clients including Boeing, Lockheed Martin and NASA.

But here’s the problem. The Constellium plant uses aluminium now sourced from abroad. America’s primary aluminium production has dropped off a cliff over the past few decades.

The Kaiser plant next door which could have provided the metal for its neighbour to process and press was instead the victim of cheap foreign competition and high energy costs.

Smelting aluminium requires huge amounts of constant energy. If the smelters are ever turned off, the metal inside will solidify, destroying the facility.

In 2023, the annual rate of US primary aluminium production fell 21.4% on the previous year, according to the Aluminium Association.

However, the Canadian Aluminium Association projected that their annual production would be up by 6.12% in 2024 compared to the previous year.

The story is clear – this industry, like so many in America, is in steep decline. Competition and high production and energy costs are having a huge impact.

The danger ahead is that secondary aluminium production in America could go the way of primary production: firms down the supply chain could choose to buy their sheeting and coils from abroad too.

The answer, says President Trump, is tariffs. And the chief executive of Constellium agrees with him.

“We believe in free AND fair trade,” Jean-Marc Germain told Sky News from the company’s corporate headquarters in Baltimore. “And the point is that trade has been free but not fair.”

“There has been massive growth in the capacity installed in China. Kudos to the Chinese people, that is admirable, but a lot of that has been allowed by illegal subsidies. What it means is that overall, trade of aluminium products is broken as an international system. And I think those tariffs are a way to address some of that very uneven playing field that we are seeing today.”

Mr Germain says the tariff plan will reset the market. He accepts that blanket tariffs are a blunt and risky tool, but cuts out circumvention by one country to another.

“Obviously, this process creates some collateral damage. It is clear that not all countries and not all products are unfairly traded. But because of the sheer size of China and the history of Chinese production making its way through certain countries into the US… a blunt approach is required,” he says.

The White House 25% tariff plan for steel and aluminium is global and causing huge angst.

Experts say a long-term domestic rebalance, revitalising the American industrial sector, will take many years and is not guaranteed.

But upending the status quo and disrupting established supply chains risks significant short and medium-term disruption, both at source and destination.

The foreign aluminium arriving at Ravenswood’s Constellium plant to be pressed will now cost 25% more – a hike in price which Mr Germain says his firm can ride out to achieve the longer-term rebalance.

“I’m not going to say that an increase in cost is a good thing for customers. But I think it’s important to look at things and put them in proportion…” he says.

Proportion is not a luxury all can afford. 250 miles to the east, in Washington DC and just four miles from the frenetic policy decisions at the White House, the Right Proper Brewing Company is a dream realised for Thor Cheston.

Thor shows me around his small warehouse-based business that is clearly thriving.

He takes me to the grain silos around the back. The grain is from Canada.

Thor relies on an international supply chain – the cans are aluminium and from Canada too. Some of the malt is from Germany and from Britain.

It is a complex global web of manufacturing to make American beer. Margins are tight.

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“We don’t have the luxury of just raising our prices. We’re in a competitive landscape,” Thor says. Competition with big breweries, who can more easily absorb increased costs.

The cans will probably go up in price on his next order. He doesn’t yet know how much of the 25% will be passed on to him by his supplier.

“We’ve dealt with major problems like this before. We’ve had to pivot a lot. We have survived the global pandemic. We’ve done it before, but we don’t want to. We just need a break.”

What about the government’s argument to ‘buy American’?

“It’s not as simple as that,” Thor says.

Back in West Virginia the mighty Ohio River snakes past the Ravenswood factories.

It still carries what’s left of America’s heavy industry. A vast multi-vessel barge full of coal passed as I chatted to locals in the nearby town of Parkersburg, a pleasant place but not the thriving industrial community it once was.

“We used to have a really nice aluminium plant right down the river here and it shut down,” one resident reflects in a passing conversation.

Here you can see why many rolled the dice for Trump.

“In West Virginia, we’re big on coal,” Sam Cumpstone tells me.

He works in the railways to transport coal. The industry went through economic devastation in the late noughties, the closure of hundreds of mines causing huge unemployment.

Sam is clear on who he blames: “Obama shut down mines and made ghost towns in West Virginia. It ruined a lot of people’s lives.”

There is recognition here that Trump’s sweeping economic plans could cause prices to rise, at least in the short term. But for Trump voter Kathy Marcum, the pain would be worth it.

“He’s putting tariffs on other countries that bring their things in, and that way it equals out. It has to be even-stevens as far as I’m concerned… He is a smart businessman. He knows what the hell he’s talking about.

“It might be rough for a little while, but in the long run I think it will be best for the country.”

Communities have been let down over generations – either by politicians or by inevitable globalisation. There is still deep scepticism here.

“No politician worth millions or billions of dollars cares about me or you. Nobody,” Sam tells me at the end of our conversation.

The Trump tariff blueprint is full of jeopardy. If it fails, it will be places like West Virginia, that will be hit hardest again.

Donald Trump has said he was “very angry” and “pissed off” after Vladimir Putin criticised the credibility of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a phone call with Sky News’ US partner network, NBC News.

Mr Trump said the Russian president’s recent comments, calling for a transitional government to be put in place in Ukraine in a move that could effectively push out Mr Zelenskyy, were “not going in the right direction”.

It is a rare move by Mr Trump to criticise Mr Putin, who he has generally spoken positively about during discussions to end the war in Ukraine.

Last month, he also released a barrage of critical comments about Mr Zelenskyy’s leadership, falsely claiming that he had “poor approval” ratings in Ukraine.

The US leader added that if Russia is unable to make a deal on “stopping bloodshed in Ukraine” then he would put secondary tariffs on “all oil coming out of Russia”.

“That would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States. There will be a 25% tariff on all oil, a 25 to 50-point tariff on all oil,” he said.

Mr Trump said Mr Putin knows he is angry, but added that he has “a very good relationship with him” and “the anger dissipates quickly… if he does the right thing”.

He said he plans to speak with the Russian president again this week.

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The comments directed towards Mr Putin come after a separate phone call on Saturday, in which Mr Trump threatened Iran with bombings and secondary tariffs, if Tehran did not make a deal with the US to ensure it did not develop a nuclear weapon.

“If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing,” Mr Trump told NBC. “But there’s a chance that if they don’t make a deal, that I will do secondary tariffs on them like I did four years ago.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Sunday that Iran had rejected direct negotiations with the US, but left open the possibility of indirect negotiations with Washington.

No one will be fired over Signal group chat blunder

Also addressing the national security blunder, which saw a journalist mistakenly added to a Signal chat group discussing planned strikes on Yemen, Mr Trump confirmed no one will be fired.

It was revealed this week that national security adviser Michael Waltz accidentally added The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a group chat with senior members of the Trump administration who were discussing plans to strike Houthi militants earlier this month.

The White House sought to downplay the incident, with Mr Trump repeatedly branding it “fake news” throughout an interview with Sky’s network partner NBC News.

The president said on Saturday: “I don’t fire people because of fake news and because of witch hunts.”

Mr Trump said he still had confidence in Mr Waltz and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was also in the Signal chat and sent a detailed timeline of the planned strikes before they happened.

The president added: “I think it’s just a witch hunt and the fake news, like you, talk about it all the time, but it’s just a witch hunt, and it shouldn’t be talked [about].

“We had a tremendously successful strike. We struck very hard and very lethal. And nobody wants to talk about that. All they want to talk about is nonsense. It’s fake news.”

Read more from Sky News:
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Mr Trump’s comments come amid calls – including from his allies – to fire Mr Waltz after Mr Goldberg wrote on Monday that he had been added to a chat group on a private messaging app.

The Trump administration has since repeatedly claimed the Yemen plans were not classified.

Donald Trump wants to redraw the political map of the world. His vision seems to be that smaller countries – such as perhaps Greenland, Ukraine and Taiwan – should fall under the sway of their local big power as the US, Russia and China expand their regional zones of influence.

There is a vicious logic to this new world order if one excludes the principles of democracy, independence, co-existence, borders and basic rights for all nations, regardless of size. It simply asserts that might is right. Mr Trump believes the US is the mightiest country and he is set on Making America Great Again at home and abroad.

Sucking up to the presidency

This is a grim prospect for a middle-sized post-imperial power like the United Kingdom. The leaders of Britain’s three main political parties have chosen not to go public with any private misgivings they may have about the Trump administration’s intentions. Labour, the Conservatives and Reform UK have all concluded that sucking up is the best way to handle the new presidency.

This explains the astonishing reports that the King might invite the United States to become an associate member of the Commonwealth when Mr Trump visits him in Scotland later this year to plan his second state visit to this country.

Mr Trump has already welcomed the news about joining up with the Commonwealth. “I love King Charles. Sounds good to me!” he posted on his Truth Social platform.

There has been no official invitation to the president. “Associate” membership of the organisation does not exist. New members require the agreement of all 56 existing member countries. It is not up to the King, who is nominal head of the Commonwealth, or even the British government. And it is not called “the British” Commonwealth anymore.

Still, stranger things have happened – will happen again now Mr Trump is back in the White House.

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The first approach may merely be an invitation to become an associate of the Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS), which describes itself as “a network of individuals and organisations committed to improving the lives and prospects of Commonwealth citizens across the world”.

The RCS has already offered that to Mr Trump in 2017 shortly after his first election. Nigel Farage delivered the letter in person. Like most clubs the RCS is hungry to expand and has also put out feelers to Ireland and Nordic countries.

Neither Mr Trump nor the British government would leave it at this trivial level. He is a great disrupter always on the lookout for the upside in any deal and with a record of turning some ideas which seemed laughable into reality.

Starmer government has overlooked everything

The prime minister laid it on thick in the Oval Office with the “unprecedented”, “historic” second state visit invitation. Most US presidents, including those who have been conspicuous friends of this country, never get one.

The Starmer government has decided not to criticise the Trump administration. They have overlooked everything from claiming Canada as the 51st state to top officials breaching security on a Signal phone group in which they expressed “hate” for “PATHETIC” European “freeloaders”. In direct contrast to their Americanophilia, ministers are reluctant to discuss closer ties with Europeans.

It would be entirely consistent with this government’s sycophancy to try to engineer a further inducement to the US in the form of closer involvement in the Commonwealth, a last vestige of UK soft power.

Trump as the King’s successor?

Mr Trump would see any deal as a takeover in which he was the equal to the King, and his probable successor as head of the Commonwealth. He would be likely to try to remake the organisation with a so-called “White Commonwealth” dominating the other members.

That would go down well with his ethno-nationalist supporters back home. It is already the vision of one British champion of US participation.

“Commonwealth union – not least a CANZUK union between Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK – really should be a cross-party no-brainer for the British. What exactly does the UK have to lose?” asks the political commentator Jonathan Saxty in The Daily Express.

This nation’s integrity would be at stake. Only a truly “perfidious Albion” would let Mr Trump into the Commonwealth in the hope of buying his favour.

The King would not be happy

The King, who has done his best to indicate support for his realm of Canada against Mr Trump’s threats, would not be happy. The legs would still be knocked out from under Canada’s resistance. All Commonwealth members would face the option of going it alone outside the alliance or bowing to Mr Trump. The US would meanwhile try to exploit old British ties to counter China’s growing influence in Africa and Asia.

There are already some in the UK ready to throw in their lot with the US. But not all of the coalition which elected Mr Trump agrees with his imperialistic expansionism.

America First isolationists tore into him after his “sounds good” comment, on his own Truth Social network. One wrote: “HELL NO !!! We left UK & kicked their asses once, NEVER going back. Personally I don’t associate with TYRANTS. All of their ‘commonwealth’ can F off, eh !!! SCUMBAGS !!!”

Another posted: “No! King Charles has been amongst the top players of WEF, for years. He’s a globalist. Americans do not want to join their Commonwealth. The U.K. allowed itself to fall to muslim invaders & Charles has ‘secret offer’ for you? Hard no from ALL of your supporters!”

Alex Jones of the conspiracy website Infowars warned: “If you really try to make America join the British Commonwealth, 1776 will commence again!” adding, “I love Trump overall… but sometimes he does just the most terrible things.”

No sign Trump’s fanbase is deserting him

Terrible or not, there is no sign this fanbase is deserting the president. As their Signal chat showed his closest aides embrace his simplistic, extractive, what’s the “economic upside” for us approach to foreign relations.

The British government should think very carefully about what they are prepared to offer up voluntarily to a rapacious American bully in this global geopolitical struggle.