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Stack-On to eliminate 150 jobs, partly because of tariffs

A gun-safe manufacturer reported it will eliminate about 150 jobs when it closes its Wauconda and McHenry warehouses and moves operations to Mexico, in part because of President Donald Trump's tariffs on metal from China.

Stack-On Products plans to lay off 128 people at its Wauconda facility and 25 people at its McHenry plant when it closes both facilities Oct. 12, according to the The Illinois Worker Adjustment & Retraining Act, or WARN. Businesses file WARN reports to give the state notice of the layoffs. Often the companies are consolidating offices or facilities, resulting in layoffs.

Human resources director Al Fletcher said the decision to relocate operations to Juarez, Mexico, was made about two months ago. That's when Trump announced tariffs on numerous goods and materials from China as well as other countries, according to The Associated Press.

Founded in 1972, Stack-On was acquired last year by Las Vegas-based Canon Safe and New York private-equity firm MidOcean Partners. Stack-On also makes home safes, toolboxes, work benches and gun cabinets under the company's and Sovereign and Sentinel names. The company has a plant in China and another in Mexico, and its only U.S. factories are the two in Illinois.

Meanwhile, many other suburban companies fear the expansion on import tariffs that have already led to retaliatory duties by China, Mexico, Canada and Europe.

Deerfield-based Caterpillar Inc., for example, has said the trade war is threatening to halt what was shaping up as a record year for profits.

Production of Harley-Davidson motorcycles sold in Europe will move from U.S. factories to facilities overseas, the Milwaukee-based company recently said, a consequence of the retaliatory tariffs the European Union is imposing on American exports in an escalating trade war with the Trump administration.

Trump has used the iconic American motorcycle maker as an example of a U.S. business harmed by trade barriers in other countries, but Harley had warned that tariffs could negatively impact its sales.

As Harley looks abroad to juice sales, tariffs hit home

Trump touts trade win in Illinois steel town as others lose

Trade war threatens Caterpillar's resurgence

European economic expansion slows amid trade fears

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