U.S. Steel, the world’s first billion-dollar company, is being sold for scrap. And Washington made it happen.
Originally an amalgamation of Carnegie Steel and countless smaller firms, and the favorite stepchild of J.P. Morgan, U.S. Steel had been losing market share for decades. It’s now being taken over by a foreign rival—the result of slow strangulation by government.
It was once the crown jewel of American manufacturing whose outputs formed the backbone of the “arsenal of democracy.” Quite literally: U.S. Steel produced the keels of key battleships and carriers in World War II.
Ironically, those ships went off to fight Japan, whose Nippon Steel is now buying the government-ravaged carcass of U.S. Steel 80 years later.
But the problem is much deeper than a single American manufacturer. For decades, blue-collar jobs have been disappearing across…
