Why JD Vance should really visit Charleston on his South Carolina trip | Opinion
Few states proudly proclaim themselves Trump Country like South Carolina, so Vice President JD Vance’s Thursday trip to tour a manufacturing facility in the Lowcountry and tout President Donald Trump’s achievements after 100 days in office made sense.
Nucor Corp. has invested more than $1 billion in that plant since it opened in 1996. The site employs hundreds of people in South Carolina and bills itself as the nation’s largest recycler and manufacturer of steel and steel products.
It was a fitting choice for the vice president and the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, to talk about “America’s manufacturing renaissance.”
Speaking of manufacturing, I hope someone will take the time to explain to our visitors how integral the auto industry is to South Carolina. BMW, for example, employs 11,000 people in the Upstate. It’s one of 500 companies tied to the auto industry in the state, and it could be hurt by President Trump’s tariff proposals, as I tried to explain last month while bemoaning the fact that more of South Carolina’s top politicians aren’t at least raising questions about Trump’s big gamble on trade.
I have another suggestion, too.
First, let me say that many South Carolinians want to know just how — and when — the administration will bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. and to the state.
South Carolina Republican voters’ faith in Trump propelled him to the White House in 2016 and sent him back in 2024 in a pair of easy primary wins, including one against a former South Carolina governor. He also scored three double-digit victories here in three general elections. Many voters clearly think if his policies work, they will, too.
Trump’s hold on South Carolina politics extends to its politicians. Rep. Joe Wilson has a plan to put Trump’s face on a new $250 bill timed to the nation’s 250th anniversary next year. And after Trump’s recent joke that he’d like to be pope, South Carolina senior senator Lindsey Graham took the time Tuesday to tweet, “I was excited to hear that President Trump is open to the idea of being the next Pope. This would truly be a dark horse candidate, but I would ask the papal conclave and Catholic faithful to keep an open mind about this possibility! The first Pope-U.S. President combination has many upsides. Watching for white smoke.... Trump MMXXVIII!”
I have a more serious suggestion for you, Mr. Vice President, if you and Mr. Zeldin have time. I wrote a similar open letter to then-President Joe Biden when he visited South Carolina on his last full day in office this year, and readers, if not Biden himself, appreciated me asking if he’d visit Conway to explain his questionable decision to take the killers of three Conway women off death row two days before Christmas.
Huger, the home of Nucor Steel Berkeley, is just a short drive from Charleston, which so many people consider their favorite U.S. city. Perhaps you and Mr. Zeldin could make the trip to see firsthand how sea level rise is real and how it’s having major effects on the Holy City, with worse to come.
Here’s what’s at stake for us.
According to sealevelrise.org, the sea level off South Carolina’s coast is up to 10 inches higher than it was in 1950. Just 50 years ago, Charleston flooded twice a year. It’s now estimated that the city will flood 180 days a year — every other day — by 2045. The city’s medical district is especially vulnerable. Parts of MUSC can become inaccessible, jeopardizing patients who can’t be evacuated. Some 90,000 properties are at risk from frequent tidal flooding in South Carolina.
We know all this because the sea level is measured every six minutes by satellites, floating buoys and tidal gauges.
Sounds pretty definitive to me, even if the naked eye doesn’t see it.
Here’s the thing, Mr. Vice President. Charleston is an amazing place. Pat Conroy, perhaps our state’s finest author, has written eloquently about South Carolina’s and Charleston’s charm and complexities. In his novel “South of Broad,” he described how South Carolinians set out to help one another after Hurricane Hugo in 1989. Now we’re always on alert. Some storms cause tens of billions of dollars of damage.
Yet just a couple weeks ago, climate science divided the state’s politicians into realists and skeptics as a Senate committee advanced Gov. Henry McMaster’s nominee to run the Department of Environmental Services only after criticizing her and casting doubt on a well-established scientific finding that humans cause climate change. Thankfully, the full Senate voted to confirm Myra Reece on Wednesday.
At her committee hearing, Sen. Ed Sutton, D-Charleston, spoke about climate change.
“I represent a district that is kind of ground zero for a lot of that,” he said. “So this is an open invitation to anybody on this committee. If you have any doubts about the impact, feel free to come to Charleston. I’ll put you up in my hotel for a weekend, and we’ll go around and we’ll look at the impact of sea level rise and the fact that it is very real.... You can’t solve a problem without looking at the cause of a problem.”
That’s a good reminder, right, Mr. Vice President? That you can’t solve a problem without looking at its cause? That fact — and other draws like the food and history — make Charleston worth the trip. South Carolinians would be grateful if you visited.
But our children and our children’s children, especially in vulnerable coastal cities like Charleston, will be ever more grateful if you and the head of the EPA pause to consider a problem that will be exacerbated by the administration’s approach to it.
Just Monday, the administration dismissed every scientist working on a massive, congressionally-mandated report on the threat of the changing climate. A team of about 400 top scientists have volunteered their time to put together earlier versions. This would have been the sixth edition. It’s not too late to revisit that decision. It’s not too late for you to report back to President Trump why that research matters.
It would be a shame for that work to stop when the research holds keys to the future and clues for lawmakers, policy makers, business leaders and the public.
It bears repeating: Climate change is real, and humans are responsible for it and for easing the impacts on those to come.
Its effects are on display in Charleston, Mr. Vice President, where you’re welcome anytime.