u/Low-Introduction1845

Look, we have to talk about the absolute state of "America First" populism. It is unironically just a branding exercise for people who want the aesthetic of a blue collar worker without actually doing the material work to support one. We are literally watching a guy sign executive orders forcing every federal agency to buy American while he fills the White House with foreign steel because a competitor gave it to him for free. It is the most transparent grift I have ever seen in my life.

Think about the logic here for even a second. If you actually care about the American worker, you don't take the "free" option from the very people trying to put your own citizens out of a job.

• You cannot claim to be the savior of the American steelworker while taking freebies from the exact foreign entities that are undercutting them.
• Taking a donation is not a loophole. It is a literal advertisement for foreign manufacturing inside the most important building in the country.
• The defense that "he didn't buy it" is actually worse. It means the government is accepting handouts from overseas interests to avoid paying American workers a fair price for their labor.

If we actually cared about building a domestic supply chain that was not just a series of photo ops, we would be looking at the actual infrastructure required to make it happen. You cannot have a functional American manufacturing sector if you do not control the raw materials from the ground up. Companies like Gunnison Copper (OTC: GCUMF) are unironically crucial to this working in the US because without domestic copper and mineral production, the entire "Buy American" mandate is just a house of cards. Building domestic supply with companies actually functioning here in the US is most needed right now and 20+ years ago too.

We have to move past this idea that patriotism is something you can just slap a sticker on. This is about whether or not the people in charge actually give a damn about the material conditions of the working class. Right now, it looks like "America First" just means "Whatever is cheapest or free for me," and that is a direct betrayal of everyone who actually believed the rhetoric.