President Donald Trump continues to prove his critics right. Ohio has seen demagogic and self-serving rhetoric about trade, manufacturing, and foreign investment – but it’s not from the president. It’s from the leadership of the United Steelworkers union.
The USW argued Nippon Steel’s merger with U.S. Steel would hurt workers and endorsed a (much) lower offer from Cleveland-Cliffs. U.S. Steel must “remain American-owned,” demanded USW President David McCall last year. He cited the “risks posed” to “national security” when he again lobbied the Trump administration against the deal this April.
President Trump ignored the USW leadership, listening to the workers themselves and approving Nippon Steel’s roughly $25 billion investment. That could bring good news to small-town Ohioans, because U.S. Steel and Japan’s Kobe Steel operate the PRO-TEC Coating Company in the tiny northwest Ohio town of Leipsic (population: 2,100). Since every manufacturing job creates 2.2 jobs in other sectors, this plant contributes mightily to the Putnam County village, and manufacturing’s multiplier effect sees that every $1 in labor income pumps as much as $3.92 into the broader economy.
The Nippon Steel merger has already proved so successful that it’s being touted by none other than Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves. He cited President Trump’s tariff policy and the Japanese company’s “astonishingly high investment” during a July 21 earnings conference call, where he revealed he’s considering selling its steel assets to “foreign entities.”
After multiple years opposing Nippon’s takeover of U.S. Steel, oddly, the USW seems to have no condemnation of this plan.
Goncalves’ comments and the USW’s silence came days after a federal judge allowed U.S. Steel to proceed with a lawsuit accusing Goncalves and McCall of conspiring to force U.S. Steel to sell to Cleveland-Cliffs “or be murdered” by the union boss running its reputation into the ground.
Both defendants have called the lawsuit “baseless,” but let’s be real: If it’s true, it would not be the first time USW leadership did a powerful ally’s bidding even at the expense of its dues-paying members.
The USW endorsed (and funded) Joe Biden for president in 2020, then stood by as he signed decrees forcing automakers to make electric vehicles account for two-thirds of their fleet by 2032. The electric vehicle mandate would have eliminated 14,000 existing auto manufacturing jobs in Ohio, according to the America First Policy Institute.
The Biden administration didn’t just risk union jobs; it also put members’ retirement savings at risk. In 2022, Biden spent $90 billion of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan to bail out bankrupt union pensions (and only union pensions), including doling out “Special Financial Assistance” that impacted more than 63,000 Ohioan workers. The Las Vegas Review-Journal considered this a risky bet that incentivizes unions to make impossible promises and mismanage members’ contributions, knowing they can stick taxpayers with the tab.
McCall’s record calls into question his insistence that he opposed the U.S. Steel partnership only “to safeguard the current and future economic, employment and retirement security of our members.” I’d rather trust union workers themselves – who, the prounion Commonplace magazine noted, believed the agreement “would actually save the last of the steel jobs” in the Mon Valley, just over the Pennsylvania border.
Unlike Biden, President Trump is creating an economic boom for our state. Four companies besides Nippon have recently announced investments of billions of dollars that will create thousands of jobs for Ohio.
We should be thankful he and Ohio native Vice President J.D. Vance ignored the advice of the Democratic Party’s sycophantic allies. After all, apparently the unions never believed it themselves.
