Two US steel-state Democrats in tough re-election fights are urging US President Joe Biden to do more to stop the proposed acquisition of United States Steel Corp by Japan-based Nippon Steel Corp.
“We’re pushing the White House on national security grounds and on trade enforcement,” US Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio told Bloomberg Television. “And fundamentally what this means for American workers and American jobs.”
United States Steel shareholders on Friday voted in favor of the US$14.1 billion takeover offer by Nippon Steel, even though Biden has publicly opposed the takeover and said the company should be US-owned.
Photo: AP
The Biden administration is putting the deal through a secretive national security review process, one that is typically reserved for businesses involving adversarial nations rather than allies like Japan. The decision by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US could be contested in court.
The US Department of Justice also opened an extended antitrust investigation into the takeover, creating additional hurdles to closing the deal. As a result, the companies are considering delaying the expected deal timeline.
Brown’s Senate race is considered one of the most competitive contests this November, and appealing to industrial workers is key to his re-election hopes. US Steel went against the request of the steelworkers union, which would have preferred the Ohio-based Cleveland-Cliffs Inc mining company make the acquisition.
Democratic US Senator Bob Casey, facing a competitive re-election in next-door Pennsylvania, where US Steel is headquartered in Pittsburgh, also is championing the cause.
“My principal concern is those steelworker jobs and this deal gives me great concern about the threat to those jobs,” Casey told Bloomberg Television.
Casey said he is inquiring with the White House about how conflict over the acquisition was handled in Biden’s discussions with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during his state visit last week.
When asked about the takeover at a joint news conference with Kishida, Biden reiterated his promise to back the United Steelworkers Union in its opposition to the deal.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump also has said he would try to block the deal if elected.
Nippon Steel in December last year agreed to buy US Steel at a significant premium, saying the deal would make the US steel industry more competitive.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) secured a record 70.2 percent share of the global foundry business in the second quarter, up from 67.6 percent the previous quarter, and continued widening its lead over second-placed Samsung Electronics Co, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said on Monday. TSMC posted US$30.24 billion in sales in the April-to-June period, up 18.5 percent from the previous quarter, driven by major smartphone customers entering their ramp-up cycle and robust demand for artificial intelligence chips, laptops and PCs, which boosted wafer shipments and average selling prices, TrendForce said in a report. Samsung’s sales also grew in the second quarter, up
LIMITED IMPACT: Investor confidence was likely sustained by its relatively small exposure to the Chinese market, as only less advanced chips are made in Nanjing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) saw its stock price close steady yesterday in a sign that the loss of the validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing, China, fab should have a mild impact on the world’s biggest contract chipmaker financially and technologically. Media reports about the waiver loss sent TSMC down 1.29 percent during the early trading session yesterday, but the stock soon regained strength and ended at NT$1,160, unchanged from Tuesday. Investors’ confidence in TSMC was likely built on its relatively small exposure to the Chinese market, as Chinese customers contributed about 9 percent to TSMC’s revenue last
With this year’s Semicon Taiwan trade show set to kick off on Wednesday, market attention has turned to the mass production of advanced packaging technologies and capacity expansion in Taiwan and the US. With traditional scaling reaching physical limits, heterogeneous integration and packaging technologies have emerged as key solutions. Surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing (HPC) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips has put technologies such as chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS), integrated fan-out (InFO), system on integrated chips (SoIC), 3D IC and fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) at the center of semiconductor innovation, making them a major focus at this year’s trade show, according
DEBUT: The trade show is to feature 17 national pavilions, a new high for the event, including from Canada, Costa Rica, Lithuania, Sweden and Vietnam for the first time The Semicon Taiwan trade show, which opens on Wednesday, is expected to see a new high in the number of exhibitors and visitors from around the world, said its organizer, SEMI, which has described the annual event as the “Olympics of the semiconductor industry.” SEMI, which represents companies in the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain, and touts the annual exhibition as the most influential semiconductor trade show in the world, said more than 1,200 enterprises from 56 countries are to showcase their innovations across more than 4,100 booths, and that the event could attract 100,000 visitors. This year’s event features 17
RSS