On December 2, newly elected President Donald Trump wrote:
I am absolutely against the once great and powerful US Steel being purchased by a foreign company, in this case Nippon Steel of Japan.
So you’d expect him to hate foreign investment in the United States, right?
Wrong. Donald Trump says he wants that more foreign investments. In “Why trading should be free,” Defining ideasOctober 30, 2024 I wrote:
In his recent appearance before the Economic Club of ChicagoTrump said he wants to impose high tariffs so that foreign companies will move their production to the United States. In other words, he wants more foreign direct investment.
If you click on his speech in the link above, skip to the point at about the 11:30 mark where he says that to avoid tariffs, all foreign companies have to do is build their factories here. Do not buy their plants here. Oh no. Build their plants here. He never explains why he wants foreign investors to build but not buy.
Newly elected Vice President J.D. Vance used to understand why it was good for the United States if the government allowed foreign companies in Japan to buy domestic companies that were in danger of closing. Like Eric Boehm from Rode wrote on December 19, 2023, quoting a passage from Vance’s book Hillbilly elegy:
“The merger with Kawasaki represented an uncomfortable truth: manufacturing in America was a difficult endeavor in the post-globalization world,” Vance writes. “If companies like Armco wanted to survive, they would have to restructure. Kawasaki gave Armco a chance, and without it, the Middletown flagship probably wouldn’t have existed.”
Too bad Vance seems to have forgotten. He needs to refresh his understanding by reading Hillbilly elegy.
Why do I say Donald Trump is attacking US Steel? Because he doesn’t want the owners to sell it. Ultimately, he attacks their property rights.