Biden to announce decision on U.S. Steel acquisition as early as Friday
President Biden could announce a decision as early as Friday on whether to approve Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel Corp., according to people familiar with the matter.
the president has said in the past he objects The deal said it was critical that U.S. Steel “continue to be a domestically owned and operated U.S. steel company.”
Biden’s top advisers have held extensive discussions with him in recent days about whether to approve the deal. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also spoken directly to the president about the matter.
U.S. Steel has said it may file lawsuits, including against the Biden administration, if the president blocks the acquisition, sources said. Cleveland-Cliffs, which unsuccessfully bid for U.S. Steel, along with its chairman Lorenzo Goncalves and United Steelworkers president Dave McCall, may also be nominated.
On Tuesday, Japan-based Nippon Steel proposed giving the U.S. government direct veto power over any changes to U.S. Steel’s production capacity. The proposal is a minor revision to recommendations from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a review panel known as CFIUS, and is intended to ease concerns that Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel could lead to lower domestic steel production and lower steel production. The U.S. workforce is shrinking.
An earlier proposal suggested that an independent committee with a U.S. majority appointed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States would make decisions about production. The proposal was submitted to the White House for Biden’s review on Monday.
The proposed changes to the so-called mitigation agreement would put all decision-making power on capacity changes in the hands of the U.S. government.
Nippon Steel’s new proposal provides a 10-year guarantee that it will not cut U.S. Steel operations in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Alabama, Texas, California without approval from the CFIUS panel, according to people familiar with the matter. and Arkansas steel mill capacity. Led by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition previously faced a Jan. 7 deadline, but last week the company said it had extended the acquisition deadline to sometime in the first quarter of 2025.
Trade Representative Katherine Tai, a member of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), is concerned about the deal’s impact on the workforce and has opposed the deal, according to sources.
Other agencies with seats on CFIUS, including the Justice Department, Treasury Department and State Department, did not object.
