More than a year after President Donald Trump placed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to aid U.S. companies, U.S. Steel Corp. announced it was closing a giant plant in Michigan and laying off as many as 1,545 workers.

But that doesn’t mean the tariffs aren’t working, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. Many of those laid off at the U.S. Steel facility outside of Detroit will be able to find work in nearby General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. plants, he added.

“There has been much more capital invested in the steel and aluminum industries,” Ross said Friday in a Bloomberg TV interview. “On balance, they have both added jobs.”

The problem with U.S. Steel’s Great Lakes plant, Ross said, is that it was just too high-cost to run. “What is happening is they are rationalizing a bit their production so that they will be more competitive in the future as we continue to go forward,” he said.

In 2018, after the tariffs were put in place, several steel companies did announce plans to boost production. Those included U.S. Steel, which restarted two blast furnaces in Granite City, Illinois, that year. But on Thursday, the Pittsburgh-based company warned of a fourth-quarter loss and announced it will shut down most of its Great Lakes Works facility, lay off workers and slash its dividend.