Biden’s revival plan doesn’t assure the Rust Belt of more jobs. ‘It’s tricky,’ the UAW president says.
Updated 5:36 PM;
Today 5:36 PM
US President Joe Biden speaks in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on March 31, 2021. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images/TNS)TNS
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Arguably the biggest beneficiaries of President Joe Biden’s plan to spend $620 billion on highways, roads and bridges are the steelmakers.
The Brazilian ones, that is. And the Korean ones. And the Vietnamese and Taiwanese ones. But not so much the once-mighty American steelmakers that Biden — and Donald Trump before him — pledged to revive.
American steel is too expensive for that — $300 a ton more expensive, based on estimates from Bloomberg and Kallanish Commodities. So expensive that two ships hauled thousands of tons of steel coils from Vietnam and Taiwan to the port of Houston last week, while U.S. Steel Corp.’s Big River Steel complex — a mere 10-hour drive from the port — makes the exact same coil.