What do you get when you cross ill-informed organized labor with pandering politicians? Devastating public policies.
Witness the latest in the embarrassing fallout from U.S. Steel’s right-headed attempt to save itself and its employees by being acquired by Nippon Steel of Japan.
Pols of both stripes, claiming to “be for America and America’s workers,” panned Nippon’s proposed $14.1 billion acquisition on everything from national security grounds to concerns that the marriage will create a monopoly.
Never has a greater myth been foisted upon the public. And never have government and union officials so thumbed their noses at billions – billions – of dollars in job-saving and job-growing investments, investments repeatedly promised by Nippon but sniffed at dismissively by the United Steelworkers union and the pols it obviously controls in what can best described as union-assisted suicide.
As The Washington Post reminds:
“The U.S. military’s annual steel requirements … amount to just 3 percent of total domestic production, according to the Pentagon, suggesting U.S. Steel by itself is not essential to the national defense. The Defense Department does not buy anything directly from the company.”
And it further reminds that Nippon “already owns stakes in several smaller U.S. steel companies, which employ about 4,000 American workers.”
And let’s say another world war broke out. Japan is one of our staunchest allies.
President Biden is reported to be about to put the official kibosh on the deal. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who once opposed the Nippon-U.S. Steel deal in an exercise in political blatherskiting, now is reported to be attempting to broker some kind of compromise.
That, after he and many, many others who should know far, far better spouted how blocking the sale would be a win-win-win for the American steel industry, American steelworkers and America itself.
But it is a lose-lose-lose scenario.
It is a losing proposition to steelworkers – hundreds at the Mon Valley Works and hundreds more in Gary, Ind. — who will lose their jobs, as promised by a U.S. Steel that says it lacks the resources to keep such operations updated and running.
And weep not for the real estate watchers and chamber of commerce types in downtown Pittsburgh who will bemoan the loss of yet another corporate headquarters, a move also promised by U.S. Steel.
But weep, deeply, for the free market and free enterprise over the government’s latest exercise in attempted command economics in pursuit of an industrial policy.
And what’s next when the predicted happens? Will the government attempt to order U.S. Steel to keep the Mon Valley Works and Gary operations open, facilities it no longer can afford without Nippon’s infusion of private cash and management acumen?
Maybe the pols will attempt to nationalize the U.S. steel industry when it finally is smacked by its interventionist failure?
It’s already effectively done that with a misguided industrial policy that dangles a large stick with the large subsidy carrot for everything from computer chips to electric vehicles and to other “green energy” follies that have endangered our power grid, the latter being a bona fide threat to our national security.
And do remember, a government that behaves in such a way also will use that stick in other ways in an attempt to beat a free people it considers to be its subjects into submission.
Pols and unionistas opposed to Nippon’s subsumption of U.S. Steel have not only cut off their noses to spite their faces but have cut off America’s nose, arms and legs.
It is a tragic era for the American experience. And nothing – nothing – good can come of it.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
