U.S. Steel Mill Finds a Savior in China But Rivals See a Trojan Horse

Along the industrial corridor that bends with the Ohio River north and west of Pittsburgh, the future looked bright for hundreds of new blue-collar jobs when Allegheny Technologies Inc. and China’s Tsingshan Holding Group Co. announced they had the governmental green light to produce stainless steel together.

What the companies didn’t foresee: that President Donald Trump would invoke U.S. national security two years ago and roll out broad-based steel tariffs in what he portrayed as a bid to save American industry from unfair foreign competition. It turned their investment into what Pittsburgh-based Allegheny now says is a money-losing debacle.