Congressmen Khanna and Deluzio talk about competing with China while touring Pittsburgh-area steel facilities

With steel production in the U.S. lagging significantly behind China, a top congressman from California offered potential solutions while touring steel plants in the Pittsburgh area on Thursday.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California) and Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pennsylvania) looked at how the federal government can help the plants and tackle competition with China.

At JM Steel in Leetsdale, Allegheny County, where steel is fabricated for solar-power company Nextpower, with which the facility is a joint venture, Khanna asked executives what could be done to bring more manufacturing to the area.

"Investment tax credits," one of the executives responded. "To the extent you can accelerate that process, because it is all about deployment of cash and reinvestment in the industry."

Tax credits stemming from the Inflation Reduction Act are part of what allowed them to expand production, but the executive said it can take years for the credits to take effect.

Steel production in the U.S. has a ways to go to catch up with China, which produces more than half the world's steel, according to the World Steel Association

"They're not playing fair," Khanna told KDKA. "They've got their government basically paying for it. It's a jobs program in China. But they don't have to make a profit. They don't have to worry about cost, because the government is just subsidizing it."

Deluzio echoed that sentiment.

"We have to compete fairly, right? Communist China, they are subsidizing their industries," Deluzio told KDKA. "They don't treat their workers with any modicum of respect."

Another difference between how steel is made in the U.S. and how it is made in China was highlighted by workers at Tenaris' plant in Koppel, Beaver County. Its steel pipes are used for oil wells. 

At the Koppel plant, an electric arc furnace is used to turn scrap metal into liquid steel. It stands in contrast, workers said, to many new plants built in China that use a blast furnace, which tends to be more harmful to the environment. 

"They don't have environmental restrictions, so they can pretty much go the old route," the worker said.

With all that, to compete with China, Deluzio said the U.S. needs to hold China accountable for breaking rules and enforce them with things like quotas or negotiated trade deals.

"That's why we need strategic tariffs to protect our industry from unfair competition," Khanna said.

KDKA asked Khanna how his idea is different from the 50% tariffs President Trump announced at a rally at U.S. Steel's Mon Valley Works in June 2025. 

"I support the tariffs on steel that we have," Khanna said. "What I would look to do is give more direct industrial investment to these plants so they can use the money to build a workforce, to expand, to build new facilities."

He believes the money should come from tax dollars through an industrial investment bank, which would invest and match private capital. Deluzio said it will take a multi-part approach to compete with China.

"That is about industrial policy," Deluzio said. "It is all of the above. It is enforcement, it's incentives. It is the things like tax credits that encourage investment here. It's all those things together. One alone won't do it."