Cleveland-Cliffs CEO calls Canada’s Stelco threats ‘bullying’

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. chief executive Lourenco Goncalves pushed back against Canada’s threat to take legal action over job cuts at its Stelco steel unit, warning the government risks discouraging foreign investment if it forces the company to sell its assets in Ontario.

“We did not expect, less than two years after acquiring the company, to be treated like a pariah,” Goncalves said Thursday in an interview on BNN Bloomberg Television. “If that’s what Canada will do to attract foreign investment into Canada, I don’t think they will be very successful.”

Stelco, which Cleveland-Cliffs acquired in 2024, began issuing layoff notices at its plant in Hamilton, Ontario, after deciding to idle its cold-rolled and coated steel operations. The move may affect as many as 500 workers, though Goncalves said the number laid off so far is smaller than that.

Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said on Wednesday the government may seek a court order that would require Cleveland-Cliffs to comply with its previous employment commitments at Stelco, impose financial penalties or even force it to divest its Canadian assets.

“Everything is on the table,” she said, as the government reviews the company’s response to the threatened enforcement action.

Cleveland-Cliffs said the move in Hamilton is the result of an unsustainable market shaped by U.S. tariffs and other trade disruptions.

“We have been bankrolling a losing-money operation for almost two years now,” Goncalves said on Thursday. “We cannot accommodate the Canadian market — the production of Stelco, the production of ArcelorMittal Dofasco and an avalanche of imports coming across the border.”

Canada approved Cleveland-Cliffs’ acquisition of Stelco under the Investment Canada Act, subject to commitments to maintain unionized employment levels and most non-union positions.

Following Joly’s threats, Goncalves called her tactics “bullying and harassment.”

“Last time something like that happened in the steel business was in Venezuela,” he said. “I don’t think Canada is Venezuela.”