Chinese Steel for American Bridges

A lot of Americans including Arkansans are surprised to discover that the second largest steel-producing county in North America is in Arkansas.  Mississippi County in Northeast Arkansas is the home of Nucor Steel, which produces more steel annually than all but one plant in all of North America.  But government policies are hitting this Arkansas economic engine hard.  And not just this one.

by Curtis Coleman, Contributing Author: Instead of using expensive iron ore to make steel, Nucor steel in Arkansas’s Mississippi County uses mostly scrap – like crushed cars or old washing machines.  Nucor is the largest recycler in North America and has invested more than $1.5 billion in Arkansas.

So one would think that in our recessionary economy, the U.S. would be anxious to use American steel made by American workers to build American bridges.  But that’s not the case.  From the new Bay Bridge in California to interstate bridges in Texas, Chinese workers using Chinese steel are building America’s bridges.

But Nucor steel is not the only Arkansas industry being slammed by our anti-business administration.  Thomas Maxwell, owner of Maxwell Flooring, describes the damage being done to Arkansas’s devastated timber industry:

“When contractors for the George W. Bush Presidential Library sought bids for hardwood floors, they excluded wood flooring from five-sixths of Arkansas’s sustainable, certified forests because the wood was not recognized by one specific certification system. The same holds true for the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, which utilized bamboo floors manufactured in China.”

These are almost invisible government policies that are destroying both small and large businesses across Arkansas and America.  No wonder Arkansas’s job growth is projected to continue to decline.

Arkansas, and America, can prosper, but we’re going to have to get government out of our faces, off our backs, and out of our pocketbooks.
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Curtis Coleman is the President, Curtis Coleman's Institute for Constitutional Policy and contributing author to the ARRA News Service.

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