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.
JITTERS: Nexperia has a 20 percent market share for chips powering simpler features such as window controls, and changing supply chains could take years European carmakers are looking into ways to scratch components made with parts from China, spooked by deepening geopolitical spats playing out through chipmaker Nexperia BV and Beijing’s export controls on rare earths. To protect operations from trade ructions, several automakers are pushing major suppliers to find permanent alternatives to Chinese semiconductors, people familiar with the matter said. The industry is considering broader changes to its supply chain to adapt to shifting geopolitics, Europe’s main suppliers lobby CLEPA head Matthias Zink said. “We had some indications already — questions like: ‘How can you supply me without this dependency on China?’” Zink, who also
The number of Taiwanese working in the US rose to a record high of 137,000 last year, driven largely by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) rapid overseas expansion, according to government data released yesterday. A total of 666,000 Taiwanese nationals were employed abroad last year, an increase of 45,000 from 2023 and the highest level since the COVID-19 pandemic, data from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) showed. Overseas employment had steadily increased between 2009 and 2019, peaking at 739,000, before plunging to 319,000 in 2021 amid US-China trade tensions, global supply chain shifts, reshoring by Taiwanese companies and
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) received about NT$147 billion (US$4.71 billion) in subsidies from the US, Japanese, German and Chinese governments over the past two years for its global expansion. Financial data compiled by the world’s largest contract chipmaker showed the company secured NT$4.77 billion in subsidies from the governments in the third quarter, bringing the total for the first three quarters of the year to about NT$71.9 billion. Along with the NT$75.16 billion in financial aid TSMC received last year, the chipmaker obtained NT$147 billion in subsidies in almost two years, the data showed. The subsidies received by its subsidiaries —
At least US$50 million for the freedom of an Emirati sheikh: That is the king’s ransom paid two weeks ago to militants linked to al-Qaeda who are pushing to topple the Malian government and impose Islamic law. Alongside a crippling fuel blockade, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) has made kidnapping wealthy foreigners for a ransom a pillar of its strategy of “economic jihad.” Its goal: Oust the junta, which has struggled to contain Mali’s decade-long insurgency since taking power following back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, by scaring away investors and paralyzing the west African country’s economy.
RSS