In nixing deal for US Steel, Biden showed were not ready to rebuild our manufacturing base

President Biden shocked the financial markets, his own national-security leadership and America’s alliance partners with a ham-fisted decision to block Nippon Steel’s takeover of US Steel last week.Political machinations were always going to be present in the Japanese acquisition of a dying yet iconic American steelmaker.Indeed, both Biden and returning President Trump had said they would scuttle the deal, offering the kind of populist rhetoric one would expect from the bully pulpit where Pennsylvania jobs were on the line in the all-important swing state.Yet, Biden is never expected to return to public life.

During this lame-duck period, he could have secured a legacy of putting country ahead of politics and economic prudence over populist cosplay. He could have demonstrated that America is open to business — especially with our most important allies, and particularly in industries like steelmaking that are critically important for domestic security and yet underfunded and uncompetitive in global markets.He failed. If today’s multipolar world requires the sophisticated playing of three-dimensional chess, Biden has shown he plays tic-tac-toe — and puts an X where an O would have secured victory.Trump is unlikely to reverse Biden’s Nippon decision, but the greater question is whether America can unlearn decades of deindustrialization and come to terms with today’s reality: We need all the help we can get — even in our most sensitive industries — if we are to rebuild and reindustrialize for a more abundant, prosperous and secure future.Deindustrialization has been the industrial policy of choice for America and much of the West since the 1970s. By offshoring low-value manufacturing to places like East Asia, where labor was cheap and environmental regulations were lax, America could instead focus on higher-value activities from product design to capital allocation. It was a policy enacted in Washington, slung by investment bankers, man...