President Joe Biden has stopped Japan’s Nippon Steel Corporation from buying the United States Steel Corporation — a victory for President-elect Donald Trump who had vowed to take the action himself if President Biden had not.
On Friday, Biden announced he would use the Defense Production Act of 1950 to block Nippon Steel from acquiring U.S. Steel:
There is credible evidence that leads me to believe that (1) Nippon Steel Corporation, a corporation organized under the laws of Japan (Nippon Steel) … might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States; [Emphasis added]
As Breitbart News reported in 2023, U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel Corporation executives sought a nearly $15 billion deal that would have seen the iconic American steel giant — vital to the U.S. Armed Forces in World War II against Japan — sold off to the Japanese company.
Nippon Steel hired former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to lobby Trump, as well as the Biden administration, to change their positions on the acquisition. The lobbying effort, though, did not result in such outcomes.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which lobbies for the nation’s largest multinational corporations, has similarly opposed Biden and Trump’s position to block the acquisition.
“The Biden administration’s politicization of Nippon Steel’s acquisition of U.S. Steel threatens to impose a high economic cost on the American people in the years ahead,” Chamber executive John Murphy said. “The first detrimental impacts will likely be felt by steelworkers — in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and other states — whose livelihoods are threatened by this decision.”
Like Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance has been a leading opponent in the Senate of Nippon Steel’s acquisition of U.S. Steel. In May of last year, Vance and Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) urged the Biden administration to block the deal.
U.S. Steel was founded in 1901 by Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and Charles Schwab and served a critical role in the nation’s “Arsenal of Democracy” during WWII.
Among several American companies that helped the Allies defeat the Axis Powers, which included Imperial Japan, U.S. Steel made the U.S. the world’s largest steel producer during the war, with Pennsylvania becoming the nation’s steel capital.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter here.
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