Touring a Steel Manufacturer to Praise "American Made" While Voting to Keep the Tariffs on Its Materials

Economy / Manufacturing Source: Facebook Post MISSING CONTEXT

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Why this matters in NY-23

Manufacturing is core to Chautauqua County’s identity and economy. On June 22, 2026, Langworthy toured Jamestown Advanced Products and praised it as proof of “what’s possible when we invest in U.S. industry,” adding “it’s time to bring more jobs home.” The company is real and successful. But it builds its products out of steel — the exact kind of material made more expensive by the tariffs Langworthy voted to keep in place. This entry sets the tour next to the voting record.

Statement

Source: Facebook post, June 22, 2026

“Toured Jamestown Advanced Products. A 3rd-generation American manufacturing success story. With 140 employees and products shipped worldwide, they prove what’s possible when we invest in U.S. industry. It’s time to bring more jobs home and strengthen American-made manufacturing.”

The Company

Jamestown Advanced Products makes commercial-grade site furnishings — picnic tables, benches, bike racks, fire rings, and trash receptacles — built primarily of steel and marketed as made in the USA. The “140 employees” figure matches the company’s own description (“over 140 employees and growing”). It is a genuine local success story.

Two details in the post are worth a note:

  • “3rd-generation”: The company’s own history runs two generations, not three. Founder Jon Wehrenberg started it in 1987; his daughter, Wendi Lodestro, joined in 1989 (the company’s About page calls her “the next generation”) and has owned and run the woman-owned business since 1999. No third generation is documented in any available source.
  • The materials: Because the product line is steel-intensive, the company is exposed to tariffs on imported metals — and, as a manufacturer that also distributes into Canada, to retaliatory tariffs running the other way.

The Voting Record

The post celebrates “American-made manufacturing.” Langworthy’s record on the policy that most directly raises these manufacturers’ costs runs the other way:

  • Roll Call 65 (Feb. 11, 2026): Langworthy voted Nay on H.J.Res. 72, the resolution to terminate the national emergency underlying the Canada tariffs. The resolution passed the House 219-211; only six Republicans voted Yes, and Langworthy was not among them. (clerk.house.gov)
  • He has defended the tariffs publicly: “Tariffs brought Canada to the table… It was like magic. When they were going to feel it from the pocket, then they got serious about it.” (WGRZ)

In plain language: tariffs on imported steel function as a tax on the inputs a company like Jamestown Advanced Products buys. Praising the manufacturer while voting to keep those tariffs in place is the tension this entry documents.

The Local Cautionary Tale

The contradiction is not abstract in Jamestown. Seven weeks before this tour, eSolutions Furniture (formerly Bush Industries, a Jamestown manufacturer since 1959) closed on April 30, 2026, ending more than 230 jobs. Its insolvency filing named U.S. tariffs among the causes, alongside soft demand and offshore competition. Langworthy issued no public statement on that closure that we have located, but he toured a different Jamestown manufacturer weeks later to talk about “bringing jobs home.”

A Second Tour (July 2026): The Other Side of Steel

On July 9, 2026 — three weeks after the Jamestown Advanced tour — Langworthy visited Cimolai-HY in Olean (Cattaraugus County), the structural-steel fabricator that produced steel for the Buffalo Bills’ new Highmark Stadium, and praised “American manufacturing and steel production… in the heart of NY-23.”

This one calls for precision, not a gotcha. Cimolai-HY is a structural-steel fabricator, and that industry sits on the favorable side of the Section 232 tariffs: its trade group, the American Institute of Steel Construction, publicly applauds the 50% steel tariffs because they shield domestic fabricators from imported fabricated steel. Unlike Jamestown Advanced Products — a steel consumer whose input costs the tariffs raise — Cimolai is a company the policy tends to help.

That contrast is the point. Neither the Cimolai post nor the Jamestown Advanced post mentions tariffs at all, yet the Section 232 tariffs Langworthy votes to keep create clear winners (domestic fabricators like Cimolai) and losers (steel-buyers like Jamestown Advanced, the dairy barns absorbing a documented ~$21,000 in added steel cost, and eSolutions/Bush Industries, which closed in April citing tariffs). Langworthy stages celebratory tours across both sides of that ledger while never engaging the trade-off his own votes drive.

Assessment

Verdict: MISSING CONTEXT

The tour and the praise are fine on their own terms — Jamestown Advanced Products is a real manufacturing success. What the post omits is that the company’s core material is steel, that Langworthy voted to keep the tariffs raising metal input costs, and that a nearby Jamestown manufacturer closed weeks earlier citing those same tariffs. The “3rd-generation” descriptor is also unsupported; the company’s own history runs two generations, founder to daughter, not three. The post’s “bring jobs home” message sits in tension with the record on the policy that most directly affects this kind of business. A second tour three weeks later (Cimolai-HY, a steel fabricator the tariffs protect) applied the same celebratory framing to the other side of the policy — confirming that the tours showcase steel, and never the trade-off his tariff votes drive.

Questions This Raises

  1. How does keeping steel and aluminum tariffs in place help a steel-and-aluminum manufacturer “bring jobs home”?
  2. Why tour one Jamestown manufacturer to praise American industry while saying nothing about another that closed weeks earlier citing tariffs?
  3. Is Jamestown Advanced Products second- or third-generation? The company’s own materials say second.

Sources

Note: This entry documents publicly available information from official records, company materials, and local news. Readers may draw their own conclusions.

Last updated: July 12, 2026 (added the July 9 Cimolai-HY tour as a second instance).