Japan’s Nippon Steel Corp is seeing support for its proposal to acquire US Steel Corp in the regions of the US where steel mills are located, Nippon Steel president Tadashi Imai told reporters yesterday.
On Monday, a US inter-agency foreign investment committee referred the decision of whether to approve or block the US$15 billion deal to US President Joe Biden, who has 15 days to decide.
Biden and US president-elect Donald Trump have expressed opposition to the purchase.
Photo: Reuters
Nippon Steel has made a number of commitments to address the national security concerns of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, Imai said, adding that he believed there was “progress in understanding.”
“In the communities of the various regions where the steel mills are located, there is a considerable amount of support for this acquisition,” Imai said. “I hope that President Biden will understand ... the value of this acquisition to the US economy.”
Both companies have previously said they planned to close the deal, which has also faced opposition from the powerful United Steelworkers (USW) labor union, before the end of this year.
Nippon Steel yesterday shared a letter with Biden dated on Monday and signed by two dozen US municipality officials in areas where US Steel mills are located, asking the US president to approve the takeover deal.
“We respectfully urge you to listen to the voices of the steelworkers and everyone else whose economic security is tied to US Steel — they are speaking loudly in unison that this deal must be approved,” the letter said.
USW met Nippon Steel officials twice last week, the union said in a separate statement.
USW repeated its view that the Japanese steelmaker had no interest in the long-term security of US Steel plants or blast furnace operations, and urged Biden to keep the company domestically owned and operated, it said.
To win support for the acquisition, Nippon Steel has previously said it would not use the deal as cover to import steel and has made a series of pledges to protect jobs and invest in US facilities it sees as key to its future growth.
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
Nintendo Co hopes to match the runaway success of the Switch when its leveled-up new console hits shelves on Thursday, with strong early sales expected despite the gadget’s high price. Featuring a bigger screen and more processing power, the Switch 2 is an upgrade to its predecessor, which has sold 152 million units since launching in 2017 — making it the third-best-selling video game console of all time. However, despite buzz among fans and robust demand for pre-orders, headwinds for Nintendo include uncertainty over US trade tariffs and whether enough people are willing to shell out. The Switch 2 “is priced relatively high”
RSS