The mechanism
Buy America rules for FHWA and FTA-funded projects require iron and steel to be melted and poured domestically — a bar that both electric-arc-furnace (EAF) minimill operators clear easily since they melt scrap in the U.S. and never touch a blast furnace or imported slab. That domestic-melt requirement is table stakes; it doesn't discriminate between Nucor and Steel Dynamics, and it never will. The money differentiator sits one step downstream: federal infrastructure dollars don't just buy raw rebar and plate, they buy fabricated, installed steel — joists, deck, guardrail, transmission structures, bridge components — and Buy America's domestic-content math applies to every one of those manufacturing steps, not just the melt. A company that captures both the melt-shop margin and the fabrication margin on a bridge or a substation collects a bigger slice of the same federally funded dollar than one that ships commodity coil and lets someone else do the value-add.