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Trade Wars
Once on the Brink, U.S. Steel’s Oldest Plant Is Getting a Big Renovation
Two years ago, U.S. Steel said it couldn’t afford to keep operating its oldest mill near Pittsburgh. Now, new owner Nippon Steel is preparing to start a project that will likely keep that mill going for decades longer. Tokyo-based Nippon Steel, which bought U.S. Steel last year in a controversial deal, said it expects to spend $2 billion to $2.5 billion at Mon Valley Works over the next three years to replace the equipment that rolls steel. The investment is more than double Nippon Steel’s original cost estimate for the project. Replacing the current 88-year-old hot-strip mill at Mon Valley will lead to more domestically produced steel. The work is expected to generate as many as 6,000 jobs and up to $1.7 billion in economic activity for Pennsylvania, company executives said. Construction on the project is expected to start later in 2026 and last about three years.
Sheet steel is the Mon Valley’s primary product. But the quality and variety of that steel has been limited for years by the hot-strip mill in West Mifflin, Pa., that dates to 1938. Mon Valley’s sheet steel is now mostly sold to the appliance industry. U.S. Steel Chief Executive David Burritt said the new hot-strip line will produce higher-value sheet steel for auto bodies and for pipe used in pipelines. He said Mon Valley will become more competitive against other steel mills, particularly a new mill in West Virginia under construction by rival Nucor.
Read more at The WSJ
‘It’s Bad, It’s Really Bad’: Shipping Prepares For A World Of Permanent Disruption
The global shipping industry is starting to treat geopolitical disruption less as a series of passing emergencies and more as a permanent feature of doing business. Years of upheaval — from Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea to the recent disruption of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — have pushed concerns over seafarer safety, freedom of navigation and military conflict to the center of the industry's thinking. Executives are now preparing for a world where such crises are not exceptions, but recurring features of global trade.
James Lewis, vice president for global operations at Cargill Ocean Transportation, said the pace of geopolitical change is one of the defining challenges facing shipping companies. "I don't think we've seen change on this scale for as long as I can remember," Lewis said during a panel held on the sidelines of the conference. "It's about being able to respond quickly. It's about building the flexibility into your fleet, into your decision-making, into the technology you're using." Rolf Westfal-Larsen Jr., chief executive of Westfal-Larsen Management and chair of Intertanko. Said: "The geographic risks have always been present in shipping. The change now is that this is on a global scale. We have trade barriers coming up between countries and shipping is being used actively as a political weapon."
Read more at Politico
Why Does It Take Years to Get a Patriot Missile From Factory to Front Line?
The newest Patriot surface-to-air missiles can be fired in seconds, but take more than two years to build and cost around $4 million each. Despite that math, the U.S. and its allies can’t get enough of them. Pentagon officials this year reached an agreement with Lockheed Martin to more than triple production of the latest Patriot interceptor model, the PAC-3 MSE, to about 2,000 a year. But the weapons maker isn’t expecting to hit that target until the end of 2030.
Lockheed is facing a litany of challenges to hit its target, from component bottlenecks to tight markets for local labor. A Lockheed spokeswoman said the company is working with the government and its suppliers to “eliminate bottlenecks and shorten lead times wherever possible, while still maintaining the rigorous performance and safety standards required.” Lockheed counts more than 400 companies that provide parts for its missile. More than 80% at the second tier—the PAC-3 suppliers’ suppliers—provide components to more than one missile program. “You need the whole ecosystem to line up,” L3Harris Chief Executive Chris Kubasik said at a recent investor conference. “If we quadruple a missile, we’ve got to quadruple the cases. We’ve got to quadruple the igniters, valves, the throttles. It’s a great opportunity.”
Read more at The WSJ
Home Sales Surged In May To The Highest Level Since December
Sales of previously owned homes rebounded more than expected in May, after mortgage rates pulled back slightly in April. Existing home sales in May rose 3.2% from April to a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of 4.17 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors. Economists were expecting less than a 1% gain. Sales were also up 3.2% from a year earlier, the strongest pace si
nce December.
- Inventory in May rose 3.3%, month to month, to 1.55 million units for sale and was up a little less than 1% from a year ago. At the current sales pace, that is a 4.5 months’ supply. Six months is considered balanced between buyer and seller.
- With a still tight supply, prices continue to rise. The median price of an existing home sold in May was $429,300, an increase of 1.3% from the year before and a record high price for the month.
- Only 1% of all home sales involved a foreclosure or an underwater situation in which the sale price could not cover the outstanding mortgage balance. This shows that homeowners are on solid financial footing.
- Sales continue to be strongest on the higher end of the market, where there is more supply and buyers are less sensitive to mortgage rates. Sales of homes priced above $1 million were 11% higher than the year before, while sales of homes priced between $100,000 and $250,000 were down 5%.
- First-time buyers returned to the market, making up 35% of sales, an increase from 33% in April and just 30% the year before.
- Homes stayed on the market an average of 29 days, down from 32 in April but up from 27 in May 2025.
- About a quarter of all sales were made in cash, down slightly from a year ago.
Read more at American Machinist
Amazon, Corning Ink Multibillion-Dollar Deal To Ramp Up Fiber Optics Manufacturing
Corning and Amazon have signed a multibillion-dollar agreement to accelerate optical fiber, cable and connectivity manufacturing that will power Amazon’s expanding data center infrastructure across the United States, the companies announced Monday. The multiyear deal would create 1,000 jobs at Corning’s four manufacturing sites across North Carolina, as well as support a number of construction jobs related to the facilities’ expansion.
Additionally, the two companies will work together on a new strategy to expand Corning’s fiber-optic technician training program with Catawba Valley Community College, which is located near the company’s optical communications campus in Hickory, North Carolina. In addition to the Hickory manufacturing campus, Corning’s optical communications segment operates two fiber manufacturing plants in Wilmington and Concord, North Carolina. Corning also has five cable plants located in Newton and Winston-Salem. Corning will begin scaling and expanding its operations in North Carolina “right away” to support the agreement, Gabrielle Bailey, director of corporate and executive communications, said in an email.
Read more at Manufacturing Dive
How Boeing and Millennium are Scaling Space Production
Boeing and its subsidiary Millennium Space Systems are scaling production and expanding their combined satellite portfolio to deliver on current commitments and meet rising demand across defence and commercial markets. Millennium has launched 16 satellites and claims a 100% success rate on its website. “This is about more than one product,” says Tony Gingiss, CEO of Millennium Space Systems.
In a press release, Boeing says its effort with Millennium includes Resolute, a new mid-class satellite platform designed for missions that need more capability than a traditional small satellite can provide, with greater speed and flexibility than a typical large satellite program. Boeing is targeting 26 satellite deliveries in 2026 as it works to increase output across its space portfolio.
Read more at Manufacturing Digital
Volvo Redesigns EV Manufacturing
Volvo Cars has begun production of its new, fully electric EX60 SUV. Customer deliveries will begin this summer. The midsize SUV is being produced at Volvo’s assembly plant in Torslanda, Sweden. Volvo says the vehicle is the first fully electric car to be designed, developed and built in Sweden. The Torslanda plant has been heavily upgraded in recent years in preparation for production of the EX60 and other EVs. During the past few years, Volvo has invested around $1 billion in the plant to install mega casting technology, a new battery assembly line, a refurbished paint shop, and a new final assembly line. We take you behind the scenes.
The most consequential operational change at Torslanda is the insourcing of battery assembly, from raw prismatic cell to fully integrated structural pack. this represents a fundamental shift in where the complexity of EV manufacture now sits within the production system. the EX60 follows a prismatic cell format, with China's Sunwoda and CATL acting as the cell suppliers. The fully integrated architecture that results is not just a packaging decision.
Read more and listen at Assembly Magazine
Driverless Trucks Are Here—and They’re Delivering Bags of Doritos
A 26,000-pound box truck loaded with Doritos and Frito-Lay chips rolls out of a distribution center, bound for a Walmart store about 4 miles away. It looks like any other truck, but there is no one at the wheel. This is one of the 35 driverless trucks PepsiCo is running on Arizona roads, marking it as the first major U.S. consumer-goods company to disclose the real-life, large-scale use of autonomous trucks on public roads. They are traversing busy highways and local streets as they transport PepsiCo products between bottling plants, storage facilities and stores like Walmart and Dollar General.
At least nine autonomous-truck companies are operating in Southern and South-Central states, especially Texas, but many still have human monitors at the wheel, or are being used only in limited tests. PepsiCo’s operation, using trucks outfitted with sensors and computers from an autonomous-truck company called Gatik, is a step beyond, on par with the technical hurdles being cleared by much smaller, lighter driverless passenger taxis from Waymo, Tesla and other companies. PepsiCo has been working directly with Gatik since 2022 to perfect the technology. They operated with a safety driver in each truck for a few years, and started driverless runs in June 2025. The trucks have had no accidents on public roads so far, PepsiCo said.
Read More at The WSJ
Data Center Construction Boom Driving Historic Manufacturing Opportunities
Spending on data center construction has tripled over the last three years, and occupancy rates remain near record highs for third-party leased data centers, according to Goldman Sachs Research published last August. While manufacturers are reaping financial benefits, they’re not immune to challenges. Expanding capacity to increase supply and meet demand requires significant capital expenditures, said Bill Pellino, national leader of BDO’s manufacturing practice.
In addition, manufacturers are navigating this amid a tight labor market and rising energy costs, while having to make multiyear business decisions. And no one knows exactly how long the increasingly controversial data center and AI boom will last. Darrell West, senior fellow in the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution, described AI and data centers as “a boon for American manufacturing,” with the construction boom increasing demand in several sectors. Among the most notable is the semiconductor industry, with chipmakers seeing double-digit or more increases in sales.
Read more at Manufacturing Dive
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