[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.