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Part of an ongoing series that looks at changes one year after the global trade wars ignited.

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The noise pulsing throughout Supreme Steel’s fabrication plant in Delta, B.C., on a busy day is enough to pummel the ears. The clanging of iron, the blast of the Wheelabrator, the general din of steel being punched, sheared and burned into enormous structural components — some weighing as much as 300 tonnes — all signify the plant is operating at its peak.

Since the early 1980s, the facility has often done just that, pumping out complex steel segments to be loaded onto barges, carried on the nearby Fraser River and ultimately incorporated into an impressive list of industrial and commercial projects. Supreme’s steel can be found in the Port Mann Bridge in nearby Surrey, the Texada Island ship loader and countless energy industry projects that have long been the bread and butter for Western Canadian fabricators.