Patrick J. Murphy: The arsenal of democracy is only as strong as its steel
During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt called the United States the “Arsenal of Democracy.”
He was describing factories. Saturday marks the 82nd anniversary of D-Day — the moment when American industrial might, translated into ships, aircraft and armor, made the liberation of Europe possible. The soldiers who stormed those beaches didn’t get there by accident. They got there because American steel put them there.
Today that lesson is overdue for a revival as the United States confronts renewed geopolitical instability and an increasingly competitive global marketplace. National security begins with industrial capacity.
China produces approximately 60% of the world’s steel. If you’re not alarmed by that number, consider what steel actually builds: aircraft carriers, armored vehicles, energy pipelines, the physical infrastructure of a functioning military. China’s dominance in steel production happened through sustained state subsidies that flooded global markets, suppressed prices and left American producers in a structurally weakened position.
That is why last year’s proposed $14.9 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel commanded national attention. This was never just a corporate transaction. It was a recognition American steel remains geopolitically consequential — and worth investing in.
The revised agreement included approximately $11 billion in investments through 2028, commitments to honor labor agreements and protect production capacity, a $5,000 retention bonus for steelworkers, and a U.S. government “golden share” with veto authority over any decision touching national security. That last piece transforms a foreign acquisition into something closer to an allied partnership pairing outside capital with sovereign control in a way that serious industrial policy has long called for but rarely achieved.
Japan is one of America’s closest military allies, and it has signaled broader strategic alignment with U.S. industrial priorities. In February, Japanese entities agreed to invest an additional $36 billion in U.S. oil, gas and critical mineral projects. It’s part of a broader pattern of allied capital flowing into American strategic industries at exactly the moment when reshoring and supply chain resilience have become bipartisan priorities. Steel cannot be the exception to that logic. If anything, it should be the proof of concept.
From my time in Congress, in uniform and now leading the Hilco Global Geopolitical Unit, I have seen how strategic sectors weaken when politics overtakes pragmatism. Industrial policy works when three pillars move together: capital investment, labor stability and sovereign oversight. This partnership attempts to align all three.
Pennsylvania’s steel workforce is leaner, more productive and deeply skilled. They deserve enforceable investment commitments, production certainty and pension protection. They also deserve leadership — corporate, political and union — that understands who the actual competition is. It isn’t a Japanese ally with an $11 billion modernization commitment. Our competition is a Chinese government that has spent two decades subsidizing its way to market dominance.
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Roosevelt had to build the arsenal from scratch. We have the mills, the workforce, the allied capital and the governance framework to back it up. Whether we use them is, at this point, a choice.