Curious,
Presume that the Soviet Union had offered to sell steel and oil to us at below our production price for 10 years, in order to shut down our domestic steel and oil industries, with the intent of then launching a war we could not quickly respond to.
Is that the free market in action. Would the preservation of that industrial capability qualify as a national interest to all citizens?
The solution in your example still is not taking Tax Payer dollars to subsidize private industry.
It is wrong every time. There are always better ways.