Harrisburg, Pa. — U.S. Steel said it will resume making steel slabs at its Granite City Works plant in Illinois as demand rebounds.

The company shut down the last blast furnace there in 2023, and it even moved to wind down its steel processing mill there in September.

However, it reversed its stance on the processing mill, under pressure from the White House, and now says it is going a step further by resuming steel making by reopening the blast furnace it idled two years ago amid strikes by the United Auto Workers.

U.S. Steel on Thursday cited “customer demand” in beginning the process of restarting a blast furnace at the plant in Southern Illinois, just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis.

“After several months of carefully analyzing customer demand, we made the decision to

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