By Chris Talgo
For someone who has lived in the Midwest during the sad, stupid, and unnecessary deindustrialization of the United States, I am very glad to see that the Rust Belt is on the cusp of a great revitalization.
We should remember that the Rust Belt played a pivotal role in America becoming the military and economic powerhouse that it is today.
Take Pittsburgh, for example. In the late 1800s, it was the birthplace of the modern steel industry, pioneered by Andrew Carnegie, which accelerated urbanization, revolutionized construction methods, and created countless jobs.
How about Detroit? In the early 1900s, Henry Ford created the assembly line process and built massive automobile factories that made cars accessible and affordable for the masses.
During World War II, Rust Belt stalwarts like Pittsburgh and Detroit turned the United States into what President Franklin D. Roosevelt called the “arsenal of democracy.” It is not far-fetched to wonder if the Second World War would have turned out differently were it not for the tanks, airplanes, jeeps, and other war material manufactured in places like Detroit.
Despite this glorious past, the Rust Belt has gotten the shaft in recent decades.
From the mass offshoring of industries that are vital to national security, like steel and aluminum, to draconian environmental regulations that stifle economic growth and innovation, many once-thriving cities in the Midwest are now in steep decline.
In the late 1990s, my brother attended college in New York. As such, we would drive from Chicago to New York at least twice a year. During that long drive, I will never forget the mammoth decaying factories that littered the landscape from Ohio to Pennsylvania.
A few years later, my sister attended the University of Michigan. Likewise, those drives included too many once-booming factory towns that looked like they had been bombed during a military war exercise.
About a decade ago, I feared the fate of the Rust Belt was sealed. After eight years of the Obama administration’s antipathy towards domestic energy production and manufacturing, it seemed inevitable that Hillary Clinton would win the White House in 2016. Had this happened, it could have been the nail in the coffin for the Rust Belt.
Remember, during her campaign in 2016, Clinton bashed coal, fracking, and pipelines, and referred to many of the people who work in these jobs as “deplorables.”
Fortunately, Donald Trump, a commonsense businessman with an America First agenda, defeated Clinton in 2016. During his first term, Trump made strides in undoing burdensome environmental regulations and countering unfair trade practices that helped resuscitate the Rust Belt.
Then, in 2020, Joe Biden defeated Trump, which put the Rust Belt back on life support. Unsurprisingly, President Biden doubled down on Obama’s war on fossil fuels, put the United States back in the Paris Climate Accords, and imposed crippling regulations that made it very difficult for factories and manufacturing to remain viable.
On November 5, 2024, all that nonsense came to a sudden halt. For the first time in decades, minority voters in places like Detroit and Pittsburgh split with the Democrats and voted for Trump, who promised to reinvigorate these struggling cities.
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Since retaking the Oval Office, Trump has delivered on his promises to make the Rust Belt great again. He is unleashing the dormant energy industry in places like Pennsylvania. He is playing hardball with China and other nations that don’t play fair on trade. And he is cutting dumb regulations that serve no purpose other than appeasing the climate alarmist left.
Unlike the climate alarmists who espouse their pessimistic message of degrowth, Trump understands that a strong manufacturing industry and U.S. energy dominance are vital to the future.
On July 15, Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) is hosting the Inaugural Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, which will be attended by Trump and “members of his cabinet, government officials, the world’s top leaders in energy and artificial intelligence, the biggest global investors, and labor and trade leaders.”
The goal is to strategize how the United States can lead the world in the AI arms race.
To accomplish this massive undertaking, which makes the Manhattan Project look like a school science project, the resources of the Rust Belt must be utilized to their full potential.
Among these resources are the millions of hard-working Rust Belters who long to return to full-time employment in a meaningful, well-paid job.
For many reasons, such as proximity to deep-water ports along the Great Lakes, many Rust Belt cities, including my hometown of Chicago, have had a significant impact on the industrialization of America.
I think going forward, these places are on the brink of a long overdue revival as the United States enters the age of data centers, quantum computing, and AI.
Chris Talgo ([email protected]) is editorial director at The Heartland Institute.
Editor's Note: President Trump is leading America into the "Golden Age" as Democrats try desperately to stop it.
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