It is no secret that things in this country are too expensive. House prices are rising due to tight supply, the energy grid is overworked and in need of expansion, and the cost of a new car continues to climb. More steel would fix this. The United States has long prided itself on a robust steel industry that has supplied itself and the world with quality metal. While China, according to a graph by Visual Capitalist, currently has the United States beat by 878.8 million tons a year, politicians and voters in both parties have advocated for a return to the days when U.S. factories reigned supreme, and foreign markets bowed down to us.
This vision is not a hollow dream. There are ways for U.S. steel production to return, reach new markets and even reduce emissions in the process. However, President Donald Trump and the ruling Republican Party have pursued policies that hurt American industry.
So how can we compete? The biggest piece of the puzzle is the electric arc furnace (EAF). Steel was created in blast furnaces for most of industrial history. Coal and natural gas were burned, producing tons of carbon emissions. However, around the turn of the 21st century, the EAF was adopted. Although they are extremely expensive to build in the short term, these machines can produce the same quality of steel at lower financial and environmental costs.
EAFs are becoming a national advantage for our steel industry. EAFs are responsible for the production of 70 percent of the United States’ steel industry, the largest share in the world. We have the capacity to produce a lot of low-carbon steel. Beyond domestic markets, this can be an advantage internationally. At the start of 2026, the European Union (EU)’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) went into full effect, which taxes any imported goods that generate carbon emissions in their production.
This development on its own does not affect our steel industry in a major way, since EU exports do not make up a majority of the market. However, Canada has a much more environmentally conscious government than ours, and they are currently debating creating their own equivalent to CBAM. Canada is a significantly larger trading partner than the EU, because it is cheaper to transport steel overland than to ship it. Canada’s adoption of any carbon-based tariffs may have a greater chance of forcing U.S. steelmakers to reduce carbon emissions in their own steel production. If America minimized its steel emissions, Canadian carbon tariffs would lock out other nations who have lower capabilities and privilege our steel exports.
America’s ability to thrive in the steel market currently faces hurdles, the first being tariffs. Trump has promised that tariffs would bring back manufacturing, and while this is true for some factories—including a Hyundai steel plant in 2025—this arrangement is not good for American manufacturing in the long run. Trump has insisted, despite Supreme Court rulings, on putting tariffs on every country. The administration has tariffed Canadian cars, car parts and steel by 50 percent, while Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has matched these tariffs “dollar for dollar” as of Sept. 8. These taxes are enforced every time the goods cross the border, which often occurs multiple times during production. If one of our biggest trade partners cannot buy our steel, then what is the point of building anything?
The other hurdle is that under Trump, America has not demonstrated any impetus towards building any green infrastructure. For instance, the federal government’s reaction to CBAM was not to invest in low-carbon technology, but to propose its own carbon tariffs with a main focus on protectionism rather than the environment or long-term trade viability. It is also important to note that EAFs are not magic and do not reduce emissions on their own. They draw power from electricity instead of coal, but if that electricity is coming from natural gas or coal plants, the emissions are merely from the power grid. Under President Joe Biden, there was substantial investment in power grid modernization and decarbonization, which included more offshore wind and solar projects.
However, Trump has been overtly hostile to alternative green energy, cutting Biden-era projects in blue states last October, and even paying $4 billion to wind companies not to build. At this stage, solar and wind power remain cheaper than natural gas and coal. Not investing in them is not only a middle finger to the environment, but to the consumer.
While “climate” is a dirty word in Republican circles, this is not to say that green innovation has ground to a halt. Since taking office, Trump has issued an executive order speeding up the permitting of hyperscale data centers to support artificial intelligence development and compete with China. These data centers are very unpopular, for reasons I have gone over in a previous article. Since the article’s publication a year ago, backlash has pushed politicians in both parties to promise that data centers will be made to fund their own power supply.
This summer, while working in the Senate, I attended a hearing of the directors of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Both Democrat and Republican members acknowledged that action must be taken to increase the supply of energy, lest the wrath of ratepayers fall on them. Democrats were insistent that wind and solar power should be utilized to bring down costs. Technology companies, though very cozy with Trump, are also businesses that wish to cut as many costs as possible. This situation is not ideal, because the government ought to subsidize clean energy directly. Data centers carry high environmental costs that are left unaddressed. I hate to say this, but in the same way that mass death in World War I led to advances in medicine, the data center frenzy may lead to advances in cheaper, cleaner power.
The steel industry’s quagmire is a microcosm of Trump’s business ineptitude. If his goals were to lower costs, compete with China and bring back domestic manufacturing, then he deserves an F. Trade with our best markets is now prohibitively expensive, and long-term modernization investments have been axed based on conspiracy theories. While data centers could theoretically drive innovation, time will tell of the damage done to communities and the environment. Thanks to mismanagement, the Trump administration has made our path to industry dysfunctional and unstable.