The Guardian reports President Donald Trump was once “totally against” the $14 billion takeover bid of US Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel. But Trump jumped aboard after Joe Biden blocked the deal citing national security concerns. Now Trump touts the Japanese company’s bid for the second largest US steel producer as a lifesaver to the U.S. steel industry.
“We won’t be able to call this section a rust belt anymore,” Trump announced at a plant in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania. “It’ll be a golden belt.”
But while the deal allegedly contains a mysterious “golden share” for the U.S. government, the Guardian reports Nippon Steel has not released those details to the public, and the United Steel Workers union is mortified by Nippon Steel’s 13 violations of U.S. trade laws.
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“The devil is always in the details, and that is especially true with a bad actor like Nippon Steel that has again and again violated our trade laws, devastating steel communities in Pennsylvania and elsewhere,” said United Steel Workers President David McCall.
Bid negotiations involve CEOs and leaders of Nippon Steel and US Steel and do not include the union and its more than 10,000 American members. The union’s most recent contract with the company is set to expire at the end of 2026, and the Guardian says nobody is clear how an international acquisition will impact the agreement, if at all.
“This is another snake-oil salesman’s pitch to make [Trump] look good and reward the billionaires and millionaire executives and stakeholders for US Steel,” said Doug May, who the Guardian reports as having worked for 43 years as a steel worker at a mill in Granite City, Illinois, from the age of 19. “He’s a proven flip-flopper. Just look at his trade cases: on again, off again.”
US Steel bought May’s Granite City plant in 2003, but idled the plant down and shelved employees in late 2015. In 2018 company executives announced they were reopening the factory thanks to Trump’s 25% tariffs on steel imports during his first term. But May disputes Trump or his tariffs had anything to do with the reopening.
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“Granite City was going to start back up anyway,” May told the Guardian. “They don’t just flip a switch just because Trump came to town.”
Meanwhile, Mikayla Prescott, an employee at US Steel’s Pennsylvania plant is telling reporters she’s worried if she’s “still going to be employed when this whole thing goes through.”
McCall told the Guardian there’s a “vast difference between public relations and putting commitments in writing. Issuing press releases and making political speeches is easy. Binding commitments are hard.”
Read the full Guardian report at this link.
