Joe Biden Builds Green New Deal Projects On the Ashes of Blue-Collar Factories
If you think Joe Biden cares about America’s manufacturing base, think again. Cleveland-Cliffs, America’s largest flat-rolled steel producer in North America, was betrayed not once, but three times by Joe Biden, all in a matter of months. First, he allowed Cleveland-Cliffs to lose out on the acquisition of U.S. Steel to a foreign state-backed company; next, he allowed their Weirton, West Virginia steel tinplate factory to close; and finally, instead of helping them, he ignored their pleas and funded a battery plant down the road to the tune of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. The United Steelworkers Union (USW) should rethink their endorsement of Joe Biden, and quickly pivot their support to Donald Trump.
Permitting Japan’s Nippon Steel, who has extensive ties to the Chinese Communist Party and slave labor province of Xinjiang, to out-bid Cleveland-Cliffs on the potential acquisition of U.S. Steel, one of America’s largest steel manufacturing companies, was bad enough. However, Joe Biden also was the reason Cleveland-Cliffs’ Weirton, West Virginia, steel tinplate production idled in March 2024, because he refused to stop the USITC from removing antidumping and countervailing duties on several foreign countries who were all found to have been illegally dumping steel products into the U.S.
In January 2023, Cleveland Cliffs and the USW filed antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) petitions to the USITC—a federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) responsible for investigating and making determinations involving imports claimed to injure a domestic industry—alleging that Canada, China, Germany, and South Korea have been unfairly dumping tin and chromium coated sheet steel products into the U.S. market, and also predatorily subsidizing their steel industries.
As a result, Weirton: Cleveland-Cliffs lost practically all of their customers, because significantly cheaper foreign steel on the U.S. market was available to them instead. The DOC, which did find evidence of illegal dumping and subsidization, announced duties on all four countries on January 5, 2024. However, on February 6, 2024, the USITC suddenly rejected these tariffs unanimously–a puzzling decision, given the initial evidence of illegal dumping they found in the prior months.
The people of Weirton—especially younger generations—can barely make a living as it is because of skyrocketing Bidenflation, according to former steelworkers in the area. When Weirton: Cleveland-Cliffs idled, 950 employees were laid off, creating more doom and gloom for the city.
Cleveland-Cliffs' Chief Executive Officer, Lourenco Goncalves, stated “In what was our final effort to maintain tinplate production here in America, we proved that we are forced to operate on an uneven playing field…the deck was stacked in favor of the importers.” Democrat West Virginia Senator, Joe Manchin, lamented that “Today’s announcement is a consequence of the International Trade Commission’s decision to turn a blind eye to nearly 1,000 hard-working employees right here in West Virginia in favor of illegally dumped and subsidized imports.”
What makes this situation even more of a travesty is that Joe Biden holds the executive authority to veto the USITC’s decision to remove the AD/CVD duties initially invoked by the DOC, and has neither said or done anything so to help the facility so far. In March 2024, Biden was even sent letters by the City of Weirton and County Commission, Senator Joe Manchin, Senator Shelley Moore, and other organizations around West Virginia begging him to veto the USITC’s decision. Sadly, their requests were ignored.
Then, as an ultimate act of betrayal, Biden sent hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to Form Energy to build a battery plant a mile down the road, next to the idled steel factory. On top of this, Form Energy will also be receiving tax breaks, as if large government subsidies weren’t generous enough. If this isn’t telling of Joe Biden’s Green New Deal agenda taking top priority over America’s defense industrial base—nothing is.
Compare this to the same Cleveland-Cliffs: Weirton steel tinplate facility under President Trump’s leadership just a few years ago. Even amid the pandemic in 2020, Weirton: Cleveland-Cliffs was purchased from India’s largest steel producing company, Arcelor Mittal—the previous owner of the plant—for $1.4 billion. Resulting from the domestic investment, the steel plant grew from 880 employees to at least 950 employees. USW local 2911 President, Mark Glyptis, stated, “Most of the tin mills have not been able to survive, we’ve been one of the survivors, so we have a robust business at the moment and we want to keep it that way…”
The only kind of manufacturing jobs Joe Biden is truly interested in supporting are those that help advance his Green New Deal agenda. As far as the steelworkers who have been contributing to America’s robust industrial base from our country’s founding are concerned, they will be left behind again and again under a Biden second term. The USW should revoke its decision to support Joe Biden and instead help re-elect President Trump, the real ally of America’s steel manufacturing workers.
S. Karol Paul has a background in trade and manufacturing policy and is a contributor to Peter Navarro’s Taking Back Trump’s America
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I am still wondering what is green about Biden's Green New Deal. The creation of the lithium ion batteries certainly isn't green. the strip mining, the child labor to mine cobalt and other metals, the coal plants generating electricity to charge those batteries isn't green. All that does is transfer the air pollution to the site and surroundings of the coal plants. The cost of building giant wind turbines and the disposal and lack of recycling the blades isn't green. The battery fires that are hard to put out while they spew toxic smoke all over the area, isn't green. The only thing green is the money changing hands.
Then, the steel plants: closing those is closing US manufacturing & appliance manufacturing, not just the metal but the auto industry, the bridge and building industries. Biden is pushing us to being a tributary state to the Chinese and other foreign entities while saying he is helping US workers. ENOUGH!
Joe Biden's true colors come out in situations like this. He is a scum bag of the worst order. I grew up across the river from Weirton . Steel and coal were king in that valley in the 30's, 40's and 50's. My dad worked at Weirton and in the mid 50's was transferred to Detroit's Great Lakes Steel. Both companies, along with Midwest Steel, were under National Steel which was created by E.T. Weir. When foreign steel was first allowed to be dumped in the US, National Steel was one of those to be affected and subsequently sold to Nippon. Weirton /Steubenville has been a depressed area ever since. Weirton at one point was spun off from thew Nippon deal and became one of the country's largest employee own manufacturers. It is sad to see that an American company was shut out from acquiring U.S. steel. At one time, and maybe even today, It produced the best tin plate in the world because of its quality control. I shudder to think of the families' futures in that area. Some are children and grandchildren of people I knew and know.