Well, perhaps it's more complicated than any single factor can account for. However, US steel production has dropped from 115 Mt around 1970 to 72 Mt todays, e

Well, perhaps it's more complicated than any single factor can account for. However, US steel production has dropped from 115 Mt around 1970 to 72 Mt todays, even as the US population has increase from 200M to 330M, which you'd think would mean increased domestic demand for steel. Overall output is worth looking at. The rise of China as the single largest producer begins around 2000-2001, which coincides to the US Congress agreeing to admit China to the WTO. China today produces almost 15X as much steel as the USA, and employs 2.5 million people in the industry, relative to about 200,000 employed in foundries and mills in the USA (bls.gov stats). Wages in the steel mills in 1970 were about $6 an hour, about equivalent to inflation-adjusted $45 an hour today. Today's USA steel mill worker averages about $30 an hour by comparison, a relative wage cut of about a third since the heyday of US steel manufacturing. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-50-years-of-global-steel-production/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-50-years-of-glo... Now, there are a lot more billionaires in the USA and a lot more poor people as well as a result of these general policies on all kinds of manufacturing, I think that's pretty hard to argue with. Lot more homeless people on the streets, too.