This could have all gone very differently. If the government’s attempt to use trade policy to promote domestic manufacturing in the 1980s had been balanced with high-quality investments to make steelmaking cleaner and more efficient, U.S. Steel may have been purchasing Nippon Steel today.

The cautionary lesson for today’s policymakers is that any efforts to protect domestic industries must be paired with high-quality investments at home that spur companies to improve their performance. Trade policies, be they “free trade,” “protectionist,” or anywhere in between, must proactively invest in our industries and workers.

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