Most of Europe has had these same kinds of protectionist laws in place for many years -- maybe they recently removed them, but I know as recently as the late 90s, if you wanted to sell computers or other merchandise there, you had to have factories employing Europeans located over there.

I was always puzzled at why they would force global conglomerates to put a piddly factory in Ireland or Wales just to get permission to sell over there; but maybe that just seemed odd because the innovation and manufacturing centers for these kinds of goods were typically west coast USA, or the far east (and still are).

My understanding of why steel production, for example, was outsourced from USA to other countries was because of the polluting nature of the production facilities (byproducts leaving toxins in rivers and streams). Many of the former steel producing states now have stricter pollution laws in place than other developing nations. The proposed legislation supporting domestic steel could force cleaner steel production methods to be developed as a byproduct of the American steel industry expanding again. Everyone wins.