[wenc]

I used to live in a rust-belt steel town. My knowledge is cursory except for my lived reality of my town being economically depressed by poor management of steel production facilities.

US Steel mostly focuses on commodity steel.

Nippon Steel has a wider portfolio focusing on higher-end specialty steel.

Commodity steel producers like US Steel (they acquired the main steel company in my town) generally play on lower end of the market, and have not invested adequately in technology or modernization. They are not able to make specialty steel because they have not made those kinds of investments. Instead they have chosen to languish with low productivity practices, so they're being outcompeted by foreign companies who are now able to make the same quality of steel but cheaper. They used to laugh at foreign steel companies because of the trash steel they made, but they laughed a bit too long and didn't realize that foreign steel gradually got better year over year. I saw this hubris play out first hand in my town.

My town also has another steel maker, a specialty one. This one was smaller but chose to invest in automation and modern technology, and also on producing new types of high-value steel for specialty applications. They had a profit-sharing scheme and had loyal employees who did not reject automation or modernization, but instead had a growth mindset. They remain competitive today.

This is capitalism's creative destruction playing out, and companies like US Steel that refuse to adapt find themselves outcompeted by more productive players.

The Nippon Steel takeover, even if it had succeeded, might have been too late.

[AdrianB1]

It was quite obvious to everyone for a long time that commodity steel production will be outcompeted by countries with lower wages, lower energy costs or both. US is not competitive on wages for commodity products, so investing in mass production of regular steel was a bad idea.

Specialty steel has a barrier of entry - not every third world country can make it. Even today China imports most of the bearings for high-speed trains and planes. This grants high margins to the few companies that know how to produce this steel, this is where US can compete.

So what happened there was normal business decisions, not "creative destruction playing out". Economy beats politics for once.

[brightball]

Where does Nucor fall in this? I don’t know anything about the steel industry but know the name.

[wenc]

I don't have lived experience with Nucor, but some years ago I read "Plain Talk" by Ken Iverson, who was Nucor's CEO. I don't have context but I remember it being a breezy, folksy management book, and one that had high believability because it came from the horse's mouth -- not some management consultant. It doesn't mean there's no hagiography, but at least you get more practicality out of CEO-written books than management consultant fluff.

Nucor today is the largest steel company in the US (and more profitable than US Steel). I believe they too produce commodity steel, but they were able to stay competitive because of good management, investment in updated technologies like electric arc furnaces, and focus on the quality and service market segments that foreign steelmakers have a hard time competing in.