OPINION: The absurdity of U.S. Steel selling out

By LUCAS KUNCE
Labor-endorsed candidate U.S. Senate

The most absurd thing about a giant Japanese corporation like Nippon Steel trying to buy U.S. Steel is that our tax dollars helped make it happen.

Each year, we spend billions of dollars arming and defending Japan. The Japanese government uses much of those defense savings to heavily subsidize Japanese corporations in strategic industries.

Now one of those heavily subsidized Japanese corporations is trying to take control of 1/4 of American steel production, putting union jobs and national security at risk. This will ensure a generation of steel industry profits are shipped overseas too.

This $14 billion deal is only helping one group of Americans, and it’s not working people. And our country’s elite shareholder class isn’t just letting this deal move forward — they’re getting a 40percent  premium from it!

HAPPENED BEFORE
We saw the same thing in Taiwan. Wall Street shareholders were willing to turn over semiconductor production to Taiwanese corporations heavily subsidized by a government to whom we provide billions of dollars in security assistance.

They then packed up American jobs and production and shipped it to Taiwan, establishing a semiconductor monopoly that makes America, Taiwan, and the world less safe. Wall Street fat cats and multinational corporations got rich. The rest of us suffer for it.

‘IT NEEDS TO END’
Wall Street and elites in corporate boardrooms around the globe have taken advantage of American workers and America’s dedication to democracy. It needs to end — that’s why we need legislation that bans the foreign takeover of any strategic industry or American corporations that have received large federal subsidies. And that’s legislation I’ll file in the U.S. Senate.

If America’s corporate elites want to ship profits, production, and prosperity overseas, they’ll have to pay back every American tax dollar they’ve ever gotten first. And if our allies want to continue benefiting from American protection, they need to steer clear of Wall Street.

We’ve got too many politicians acting like this problem started yesterday. Stopping a single sale is not enough. In the Senate, I’ll fight to put our workers and security first, and to keep us out of needless wars over resources — just like I have been.