It has always kind of held true that there is no pandering quite like a Democratic presidential candidate pandering on an election year Labor Day in a Pittsburgh union hall. And this year was certainly no exception — especially since a major steel deal happens to be squarely on the table in the national discourse.
Jabbing her finger into the podium with furrowed brow as President Joe Biden stood nearby, nodding off — er, nodding his head — Vice President Kamala Harris bellowed, “U.S. Steel should remain American-owned and American operated!” She then offered the obligatory follow-up pander: “And I will always have the backs of U.S. Steel workers!”
It was a good line and a good time and place for it politically, but the vice president offered absolutely no ideas as to how she, as president, planned to in fact “have their backs” and deliver on that declaration about ownership. Because there aren’t any.
The pathetic part of it is that she knows full well that, at the moment at least, a pending merger with Japan’s Nippon Steel is the one and only thing that will keep U.S. Steel from becoming a shadow of itself and very likely having to leave Pittsburgh altogether, preventing a massive shaft to the very people she was promising to save in that International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers hall on Monday. Harris, her boss President Biden, and even Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump virulently oppose that company-and-job-saving deal.
You see, U.S. Steel, as it currently stands, is in great jeopardy, and with it the jobs of those workers whose backs politicians claim to have. As I wrote earlier this year, in the wake of other major American steel makers having gone bankrupt and disappeared with U.S. Steel not far behind them, Nippon Steel has stepped up and put a $15 billion deal on the table that would shore up and even grow the company. The proposed deal — which, by the way, has received all necessary regulatory approvals as well as high praise from leading American economists — is the only option on the table that would guarantee that the plants and the jobs remain here on American soil. Pittsburgh in particular. Period.
U.S. Steel and its workers know this full well. So well, that on Wednesday following Harris’ Labor Day bloviation, the company held a massive rally of its employees in downtown Pittsburgh, warning, among other things, of the need to leave its storied home city and state if politicians succeed in blowing up the Nippon Steel deal.
Yet, this latest attempt to sound the alarm seems to have fallen flat, as fresh reports surfaced Thursday morning that an undeterred Biden was ready to pull the trigger and block the deal imminently. Really? For Harris?
Here are some additional facts to bear in mind: The stock price of U.S. Steel fell 20% on the initial reports that Biden might block the deal. Reuters reports that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) fired off a letter to Nippon Steel recently raising bogus national security concerns that one expert argued “are not ones that would fall into the national security bucket, but quite clearly into two others: nationalistic trade protectionism and electoral politics.” The New York Times reports that Japanese officials — our friends — “are bristling at reports that Mr. Biden intends to sink” it.
So. The value of U.S. Steel is crashing over a political kerfuffle, a government agency has no problem feigning national security as a pretext for Biden to block a deal that would save it (are the folks at CFIUS confusing Japan with China, or what?), and our Japanese allies are mad at us. I hope the politicians are happy, because the good guys certainly are not.
I could go on because there is so much fodder here, but I will just close by re-stating something I wrote in April, which still holds true. The best answer in this case would be to simply allow the free market to function. Allow Nippon Steel to close its purchase of U.S. Steel and keep those plants here on our soil, producing steel for Americans and steel for export. That will protect American jobs, strengthen American economic and military alliances and help grow and sustain two major global economies at a time when they badly need it.
And I will add to that now, to properly reflect the events of the week: This, of course, would require Harris, Biden and Trump to cut the crap and stop lying about what they can and cannot realistically do in this situation and that U.S. Steel can no longer, on its own, be the powerhouse U.S. Steel we knew, loved and relied upon. Sadly, for a great American company, a great American city and thousands of men and women who just want to keep putting in an honest day’s work and taking care of their families, I will not be holding my breath.
Featured Image Credit: Roy Luck
