The lede: Every "Buy America" federal contract, EV tax credit, and infrastructure dollar that funds a new electric-arc-furnace (EAF) mill doesn't start with iron ore — it starts with a scrapyard. EAFs, unlike Cleveland-Cliffs' blast furnaces, run on recycled steel: old cars, appliances, rebar, demolished buildings. As Nucor and Steel Dynamics expand EAF capacity to meet Section 301-tariff-protected, Buy America-mandated domestic steel demand (highway bills, IRA manufacturing, Pentagon procurement all require U.S.-melted steel), someone has to source, shred, sort, and haul the scrap feedstock at industrial scale before a single furnace fires. That's a chokepoint business with its own margin, and it trades under different tickers than the mills everyone already watches.
Who cashes in: