To the Editor:

The past month has been a culmination of a lot of hard work by many Americans on both sides of the fence. The reality is that we have a choice of either spending our time and effort on the track behind us or focusing on the rail to be laid ahead. The steel industry has managed itself through decades of tough times. Through it all, the industry has adapted and reinvented itself time and again.

Steel has been, and will continue to be, an integral part of America’s foundation. In fact, in more than a century there rarely has been a country of economic significance that did not have steel as part of its backbone. So as disappointed as many of us are about the election results, we must deal with the next four years.

In the meantime, the steel industry will remain in the forefront of recovery: Not only the massive steel mills producing America’s steel requirements at home, but globally along with the hundreds of thousands of small to mid-sized manufacturing companies supplying and supporting the American steel industry. Those small to mid-sized distributors and manufacturers represent the jobs and growth this country so desperately requires today.

The fact is it will be the private sector—the entrepreneurs and those with the drive to build, improve and create—that will be the answer to recovery. They have always been the leaders of growth and development because they understand what has to be done and when to do it. As America and other countries throughout the world continue to build and rebuild, steel will remain the key ingredient to national greatness, independence and survival—even in the face of the challenges, foreign and domestic.