Trump’s visit comes at a pivotal moment for Dundalk

Donald Trump was a long-shot presidential hopeful when, in September 2016, he made a surprise visit to Dundalk’s Boulevard Diner. He enjoyed a crab cake, distributed campaign stickers and greeted throngs of enthusiastic supporters.

His promise to revive American manufacturing spoke directly to this working-class community, still reeling from the loss of the Bethlehem Steel mill. The warm reception was a harbinger of the support he would find in similar places across the country, fueling his stunning electoral victory that November.

In the decade since, Dundalk has continued to lose pieces of its past. The Key Bridge fell. Eastpoint Mall shuttered. Long-standing businesses such as Herman’s Bakery, the beloved spot next to the Boulevard Diner, closed.

Dundalk is also moving toward a different future. Tradepoint Atlantic transformed the 3,300-acre industrial site in Sparrows Point where the steel mill once stood into a global logistics hub — home to 55 businesses, more than 14,000 jobs and billions of dollars in private investment.

Trump, now an embattled second-term president, returns to the Dundalk area Tuesday amid this transition. He plans to deliver remarks as the defense technology firm Anduril Industries announces a new manufacturing initiative at Tradepoint that, according to multiple elected officials, will bring over 3,000 jobs.

As Trump makes his pitch to voters in the closing weeks before the midterm elections, he is expected to paint Tuesday’s announcement as a comeback story for old manufacturing towns like Dundalk. But how he’ll be received this time is uncertain.

The Tradepoint era

The Sparrows Point steel mill was once the largest in the world, employing 31,000 people at its peak. Its workers were unionized, with good pay and benefits that allowed families to live on one income. The jobs were stable enough to last a lifetime and, in some cases, pass from one generation to the next.

But by 2012, the last blast furnace shut down for good. Jobs disappeared, and families moved away. An era of manufacturing came to a bitter end. So did much of what had defined Dundalk for decades.

“It was the whole life of that community,” said Bill Barry, retired director of labor studies at the Community College of Baltimore County’s Dundalk campus.

In its place came Tradepoint Atlantic, which took over the Bethlehem Steel site in 2014. It has since leased warehouse space to companies like Under Armour, Amazon and spice giant McCormick. It is also constructing a container terminal, scheduled to be operational by the end of 2028, that is expected to reshape the Port of Baltimore.

Now Anduril, named for a sword in “The Lord of the Rings,” is bringing a major new investment to the site. The Wall Street Journal reported in August that the company was planning a defense production facility at Tradepoint. Anduril is set to become one of Baltimore County’s largest employers.

“It was heartbreaking to lose Beth Steel and the steel industry,” said Republican state Sen. Johnny Ray Salling, a former steelworker who represents Dundalk. “There were a lot of people that were very discouraged about that. But knowing where we are now, we have come a long way.”

But Barry said the jobs that Tradepoint has brought to Sparrows Point are different from those Bethlehem Steel once provided. Many are not union jobs, and fewer workers live in the surrounding community. Particularly in the warehouses, turnover is higher, and some jobs are seasonal.

A cooler reception?

Anger over the loss of the steel plant and concerns about global trade helped fuel a political shift in eastern Baltimore County in 2014. Five state and county legislative seats that Democrats had long held flipped that year to Republicans. Communities that once voted reliably blue turned red.

Trump rode that wave, winning the Dundalk area in all three presidential elections in which he appeared on the ballot. His 2016 visit to the Boulevard Diner packed the restaurant, with people lining up outside to snap photos and greet him. Over lunch with Salling and other elected officials, Trump talked about bringing more industry to Dundalk.

“He came in and said, ‘I’m your savior. I’m going to make America great again,’” Barry said.

Trump now returns as a widely unpopular president, and the revival of American manufacturing he promised through tariffs and domestic investment has yet to materialize. The country has lost tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs since Trump returned to the White House in 2025.

In the Dundalk area, some Republican candidates are seen as more vulnerable than they’ve been in a decade. Protests are planned Tuesday near Tradepoint, as is a pro-Trump rally by an east-side Republican club.

At the Boulevard Diner, where a replica presidential seal hangs over the booth where Trump dined in 2016, patrons said they still believed in Trump’s ability to attract new business to Dundalk, rebuild the Key Bridge and draw attention to a community that has often felt overlooked.

Michael Haines, 68, said he has watched people leave, businesses close and crime take a toll on Dundalk since the downfall of Bethlehem Steel. The registered Republican believes Trump is the one who can turn Dundalk around.

“I think right now that this state and this country is in serious trouble, and I think he’s the answer to it,” Haines said as he stopped in the diner Monday morning on his way to work.

At the breakfast counter, 67-year-old Sonny Nicola, a former Sparrows Point steel plant employee, said he stood by his decision to vote for Trump three times.

“Mr. Trump is a businessman, and he knows how to run a country,” Nicola said. “I think that he’s doing a great job.”