Hold on a minute: The U.S. is getting its titanium where?

If James A. Traficant Jr. had not gotten himself convicted of bribery and drummed out of the U.S. House of Representatives, there is no question that he'd have spent his one minute on C-Span today talking about titanium.
Specifically the titanium that will be going into 100 new cargo planes that Boeing Corp. is going to build for the United States military. And where will Boeing get the hundreds of tons of titanium that will go into these U.S. military planes? Russia. Yes, folks, Russia.
Now, we realize that Russia is no longer the evil empire. Indeed, it is, in many matters, our ally. And certainly trade with Russia is important, if for no other reason than that Russia has vast stores of oil and natural gas that could help the West be less dependent on the Middle East for our energy needs.
It's not that we have anything against Russia per se.
Here we go again
What we oppose is doing damage of the same kind that was inflicted on the domestic steel industry to yet another of our vital national industries, the titanium industry. And, we object to the people of the great states of Ohio and Pennsylvania having to take the hit for Boeing Corp. and its workers in the Northwest.
RMI Titanium in Weathersfield Township, right outside of Niles, is the second largest producer of titanium in the United States. Colorado-based TIMET is the first and Allegheny Technologies in Pennsylvania is the third. Between them they can certainly produce the titanium that Boeing needs.
But Boeing was given a waiver from the Berry Amendment, a 1973 law that generally prohibits the use of foreign goods in products purchased by the U.S. Department of Defense.
RMI, TIMET and Allegheny Technologies are joining with the United Steelworkers of America to try to overturn the decision. The nature of that alliance should say something about how important this decision is to the industry.
American taxpayers are going to be paying for these planes, American personnel will be flying and riding in them, and they should be American made -- from the rubber on their tires to the avionics in their cockpits to the titanium in their fuselages.
If those products aren't bought from American companies today, those companies may not be around tomorrow, when they're needed to build, say, a Starship Enterprise. Beam us up.