The Bitter Irony of Donald Trump’s Attack on U.S. Steel

On December 2, President-elect Donald Trump wrote:

I am totally against the once great and powerful U.S. Steel being bought by a foreign company, in this case Nippon Steel of Japan.

So you would expect that he would dislike foreign investment in the United States, right?

Wrong. Donald Trump says he wants more foreign investment. In “Why Trade Should be Free,” Defining Ideas, October 30, 2024, I wrote:

In his recent appearance before the Economic Club of Chicago, Trump said he wants to impose high tariffs so that foreign firms will move their production to the United States. In other words, he wants more foreign direct investment.

If you click on his speech in the link directly above, go to about the 11:30 point where he says that to avoid tariffs, foreign companies need only build their plants here. Not buy their plants here. Oh, no. Build their plants here. He never explains why he wants foreign investors to build, but not buy.

Vice-President-elect JD Vance used to understand why it was good for the United States if the government allowed foreign companies in Japan to buy domestic firms that were in danger of shutting down. As Eric Boehm of Reason wrote on December 19, 2023, quoting a passage in Vance’s book Hillbilly Elegy:

“The Kawasaki merger represented an inconvenient truth: Manufacturing in America was a tough business in the post-globalization world,” Vance writes. “If companies like Armco were going to survive, they would have to retool. Kawasaki gave Armco a chance, and Middletown’s flagship company probably would not have survived without it.”

Too bad Vance seems to have forgotten it. He should refresh his understanding by reading Hillbilly Elegy.

Why do I say that Donald Trump is attacking U.S. Steel? Because he doesn’t want to allow its owners to sell. Ultimately, he’s attacking their property rights.

 

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