What a Western Hemisphere Pivot Could Mean for Concrete

By Victor Gillam - https://pixels.com/featured/monroe-doctrine-1896-granger.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82247860

I read an article from Doomberg, one of my favorite geopolitical writers, and it got me thinking. His point was the U.S. isn’t going to keep pouring money into Ukraine, and we’re not going to keep saying China is our number one competitor. The new focus is keeping the BRICS countries in check, making sure China and Russia don’t control land and resources in our backyard—Central and South America.   
 
That sounds a lot like the Monroe Doctrine, right? Back then it was “Europe, stay out of the Western Hemisphere.” Now it could be “China and Russia, you’re not running the show down here.” And if that’s the play, then yeah, oil and gas are front and center. But cement fits in too.   
 
Here’s the reality. Most of the cement we pour in the U.S. isn’t even owned by U.S. companies. Holcim, Switzerland. Heidelberg, Germany. CRH, Ireland. Cemex out of Mexico is big here. Votorantim, Brazil, has plants. Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua, another Mexican company, bought U.S. plants from Cemex a few years back. Even the names you’d think are American aren’t anymore. CalPortland’s been owned by a Japanese company for decades. Ash Grove got bought out by CRH. So there are some Western Hemisphere players, but the scoreboard is still tilted heavy to Europe.   
 
And maybe some folks already saw this pivot coming. Why else would Amrize set up a U.S.-only company? Or why Cemex and GCC carve out clear U.S. operations? They’re hedging. If politics heat up and Washington decides it cares about who owns the kilns, they’ve already built a wall around their U.S. assets.   
 
Then there’s fuel. Cement plants eat energy—petcoke, natural gas, whatever you can get. Here’s what doesn’t get said enough: the U.S. has more natural gas than anybody else in the world. If policy lines up with that, the whole equation for cement changes. Venezuela’s oil and Argentina’s shale might matter, but we’ve got the biggest stack of chips sitting right under our feet.   
 
So what happens if this shift is real? Maybe the U.S. pushes new trade rules to move clinker and cement easier inside the Americas. Maybe Washington says we need to bring more capacity back onshore, stop relying on Europe. Maybe Mexican and Brazilian producers make a run to grab more U.S. territory before the rules change.   
 
We’ve all spent the last few years arguing about Portland Limestone Cement and carbon rules. But if Doomberg’s right, that might not be the fight that matters most. The bigger question is ownership. Who controls the kilns. Who runs the quarries. Whose flag is flying over the headquarters.   
 
The Monroe Doctrine was about telling outsiders to stay out of our backyard. This time the question is simpler—do we even own our own backyard when it comes to cement?