Bayou Steel announced this morning that it is shutting its La Place, Louisiana mill, leaving 376 actual American steelworkers abruptly unemployed with no explanation.
There is an explanation, of course, though you won’t hear it from the firm’s private equity owners, Connecticut-based Black Diamond Capital Management. The Times-Picayune-Advocate-Whatever credits Gov. Edwards in it’s headline, but everyone quoted in the piece blamed one thing: the president’s trade war.
Peter Ricchiuti, business professor at Tulane University's Freeman School of Business, explains why the La Place mill’s closing bodes I’ll for American steel:
"I am really surprised because it was a 'mini mill' and they are so much more efficient than other mills," Ricchiuti said, explaining that they take in old cars, refrigerators and the like, melt them down and turn the metal into "long products." Also, he said, because the plant was on the Mississippi River, it was able to receive scrap metal from cheap sources, like the Caribbean, in the most cost-effective way.“
“I think the tariffs just killed them," he said. "And if they threw in the towel, there have to be a lot of traditional steel mills out there where they're thinking the same thing in the executive boardrooms."
The plant’s workers were given no notice of the closing, nor were state and parish officials. The state’s Workforce Commission scrambled its mobile Job Center to La Place to help the displaced workers figure out what to do next.
At this point, I can’t even muster a sarcastic comment about American greatness. Please just get these people out of there while we still have something of a country left.