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Thick plates of steel for use in construction and ship building are hot-rolled by machinery at the Nippon Steel Corp. Kimitsu steel mill in Kimitsu, Japan near Tokyo February 6, 2008.
Biden slams Nippon Steel deal — but Tokyo plays it cool
US President Joe Biden on Thursday came out against Japan’s largest steel producer acquiring Pittsburgh-based US Steel, saying America must “maintain strong American steel companies powered by American steelworkers.”
Nippon Steel made an offer worth over $14 billion in December, and shortly afterward the White House indicated it would be scrutinized by the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States. For now, the deal is still on, but CFIUS review is usually reserved for deals involving companies from potential adversaries – not from trusted allies like Japan — and presidents rarely comment before the committee finishes.
But this is 2024. Biden and presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump are battling over blue-collar workers in key swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania in November. Trump promised to block the deal “instantaneously” during a meeting with Teamsters earlier this year, and Biden has never been shy to flex his union bona fides.
How does Tokyo feel? Discretion seems to be the better part of valor for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
“Tokyo understands that in love and politics, timing is everything and that the political timing of this deal is awful for Biden,” says Eurasia Group’s Japan analyst David Boling. “That doesn’t mean that Tokyo is happy that Washington is treating an ally this way. But it’s not putting up a big fuss.”
An entrance to the U.S. Steel Great Lakes Works plant is seen in Ecorse, Michigan, U.S., September 24, 2019. Picture taken September 24, 2019.
Nippon Steel’s US deal may be good business, but it’s bad politics
The Global Business Alliance, a group of multinational corporations, is urging the Biden administration to keep politics out of any national security review of Nippon Steel’s offer to buy U.S. Steel — but politics is precisely the problem.
The deal: Japan’s largest steel producer is offering over $14 billion to buy U.S. Steel, and on paper, it shouldn’t be a particularly painful process. The offer is a nice premium over where U.S. Steel’s stock is currently trading, and as Japan is among the US’ closest allies, under normal circumstances, government oversight would be only routine. So why did Nippon Steel have an executive in Washington last week to meet with concerned lawmakers?
Because this is 2024. U.S. Steel owns major plants in Michigan and Pennsylvania, two states US President Joe Biden must win in November to secure re-election – and the United Steelworkers union is mad enough to spit. Neither U.S. Steel nor Nippon Steel consulted the union as the deal was being negotiated, and union leadership is hammering management for selling out to a foreign-owned company.
So rather than a swift approval, Biden (and, it should be said, a bipartisan group of lawmakers) has expressed support for a review through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an agency set up to safeguard national security in major deals by foreign-owned corporations.
And, gosh, who knows how long that could take? GZERO’s crystal ball keeps pointing to a resolution sometime after Tuesday, Nov. 5.