U.S. Steel warns plants could close without Nippon Steel sale

Simple fix, rename the company to “East Asian Steel Concern” or something and no one would bat an eyelid.

…before the takeover. People are just worried about the name.

this means the answer will be either a taxpayer bailout, or a change of mind.

do you stick to the taxpayer, or stick it to the union, even though the union's position seems foolish?

I think it would be foolish in the extreme to block Nippon Steel from buying US Steel. Literally no one else is interested in saving US Steel. The pollies say they want US Steel to remain American owned and operated but have no solution to US Steel's problems that keeps them under US ownership. Blocking the sale to Nippon Steel and doing nothing else guarantees those Mons Valley mills close and the jobs go away forever. The old saying that "pride goeth before the fall" seems to apply here.

I think they should not try to do this during the U.S. presidential election. The United Steelworkers oppose the deal because it does not preserve "legacy obligations", including benefits for retired workers. Biden and Harris need the support of the unions, so they have opposed the deal. Nippon Steel should wait until after the election to negotiate.

let’s be fair and point out that trumpster opposes it also.

Just bad politics to interfere with business operation, a classic mistake. If you lay down the facts, it’s pretty clear that this deal needs to go through.

Kamala says…no!

Ban selling AI chips to adversaries? You bet. This makes sense to me.

A steel mill that's barely getting by will benefit from new investments, technology, customer base etc that Nippon Steel will bring. Last I checked, steel is a commodity and Japan is a crucial ally to the US... At the end of the day, politicians only care about themselves and not the people that they represent.

This was the expected situation right? Am I confused in thinking there was no obvious domestic buyer hence why a corporation from abroad was interested. Hope these people don’t lose their jobs. And this is a good lesson in feeing headlines isn’t the solution when you have no actual way to solve a problem.

Similar hysteria when Sony bought Columbia Pictures. See any difference in movie quality or influence on the motion picture industry?

let’s be fair and point out that trumpster opposes it also.

The article does

Why aren't Americans (private investors, car and steel manufacturers, investment banks, union pension investment schemes. Elon, etc) coming to the rescue of this wonderful, historic and vital (and almost dead) company ?

If it benefits the workers, taxpayer, and industry, I see no reason to block the sale.

Manufacturing mostly moved out of the US since the 80’s anyways, and the opponents of this merger have no Plan-B other than massive layoffs and govt bailouts.

Tell the lobbyists who oppose the sale that the most “Made in America” car you can buy is ironically a Toyota from the Kentucky manufacturing plant.

Not a take over, a merger, both have so much to offer for an even global trading platform.

US steel productivity would be a lesson insight for Nippon Steel.

Nippon Steel investment a lifesaver for US Steel.

Merger would cross all the political "T" and dot all the "I" for whoever make the cut, Trump or Harris, November.

More importantly, a clear recognition of/to the threat the government of china presents to global rules based trading.

Too bad.

Foreigners should not own US national security assets. We're not talking about the Cheerios factory here. We're talking about the material that battleships are made of.

I don't give a damn how small their market share is right now; in wartime, it would and would be ramped up big time. It needs to remain in American hands.

Full stop.

trust no one

So now they claim they will shut it down unless japan comes to their rescue!? what kind of BS is this?

What if Nippon steel changed it's mind and decided NOT to go with the proposal?

US steal management are so pathetic to the point were they are willing to gamble with the lively hood of their hard working employees to save their own necks and get that extra $$$ bonus.

If they were managing this historical company well enough to post profit they would NOT be in this dilemma.

I don't give a damn how small their market share is right now; in wartime, it would and would be ramped up big time. It needs to remain in American hands.

Tell that to the Marine Corps, who are currently phasing out the Colt M4 for the H&K M27 rifle. Not manufactured in the USA under license, it has MADE IN GERMANY stamped on it.

Wait until after the election... right now neither side wants to appear easy on Corporate America. As soon as one or the other is elected a package will magically appear that will keep the company going until it needs rescueing again.

Japan has already said that the workers will keep their jobs and the union. So it's owned by Japan. American jobs will be saved and, who knows, maybe even more created. If the US nixes this, the little guy is brushed aside yet again.

Production costs are going up for Nippon Steel: iron ore, LNG. Nippon Steel is losing domestic market share to Chinese steel makers who have advantage of lower energy costs, not to mention Japan is and has been in a never ending recession. Japan Iron and Steel Federation data shows steel imports from China up 43% from Apr to Jun.

Nippon Steel is also going to cut production in China by 70% because clients like Toyota are losing the EV race in China. If you do not want Chinese steel makers producing more and flooding the market with low prices, you should support Nippon Steel take over of U.S. Steel, but both US and Japan are not out of the woods yet with fierce competition from China.

If even the steel workers want the deal to go through, politicians step aside. Keep your rhetoric and political point scoring away from the market! This is not the way.

P.S If it were China making a bid I would understand . Their record with shoddy practice, cutting corners and corruption are well documented, but Japan is a very close ally and suffers from none of those defects. Let it go through. These are not the droids you are looking for!

Block the sale because Trump says so!

Oh wait, Harris said the same. Sell it!

Continue under the name "US Steel" and lose your headquarters and thousands of jobs in Pittsburgh. Or change the name to "Nippon Steel" and keep your HQ and thousands of jobs there.

Seems like a no brainer and the presidential candidates need to put this outdated nationalist way of thinking down for a bit and do what's best for these hard working people.

If Nippon Steel doesn't take it on and prop it up, the people of Pennsylvania or of the entire country may end up having to do so.

no investment from Nippon Steel will bring further poverty and unemployment to Rust Belt.

USs may be old business but seriously outdated and have no more room to survive without investments.

unsure is that lady who wants to be a president-is aware of.

Continue under the name "US Steel" and lose your headquarters and thousands of jobs in Pittsburgh. Or change the name to "Nippon Steel" and keep your HQ and thousands of jobs there.

Murican politicians would rather it closes down. There aint a doubt in my mind.

This is total B.S. The US government bailed out the Auto industry. They can put this American Company back on track as well.

This company name is the same conversation as Ford, GE, Macys, Colgate, and could name a dozen more.

Everything the union, the board the workers want. Is all in the US. All that is needed is a bailout or a few American billionaires to come together and re-invest and re-structure the company.

"The merger sells out the future for workers, retirees, and communities and jeopardizes our nation's ability to produce the melted, poured and finished steel products that we need for our national defense and critical supply chains," This can not be allowed to happen. This company can be saved without outside influence.

The Mon Valley plants are the last steel factories in the Pittsburgh region following plant closures and mass layoffs in the 1970s and 1980s.- Allowing this historic plant that built the back bone of America. Projects like the Empire state building. The Twin Towers. Some of most famous ships. Cites, buildings, bridges, What's came out of this factory is the very fabric of American structure. I love Nippon Steel and Japan. But some things America belong under control of America with no Chinese Japanese outside influence.

Democrats have run our companies out of business, Hatched them for sale to enrich themselves on side and under the table deals. A revolution is coming. And I can not think of any better time to start it with saving US Steele. America wake up. Stop selling out and believing these crooked politicians. America can stand on her own two.

The argument I hear from some Americans is that there is no guarantee that relations with China will not ever warm and this may not be in the national security interests of the U.S.

To be able to see down the line in decades is important but I would look at the market share of US Steel which is no more than 7%. There is plenty of competition in the U.S.

Acquisition of US Steel may be a distractor that takes attention away from seeing what's inside once you take the lid off of the Nippon Steel pot. Distractors are used to mask something else. The decision to release the water of Fukushima reactors comes with a regimented lineup of Japanese seafood ban articles that take your attention away from the domestic discussion and statistics that over half of the Japanese oppose the release of the water.

Whether Nippon Steel acquires U.S. Steel or not does not address the issue of competition against Chinese Steel makers who have of 50% of the world's market and is slowly taking domestic market shares in Japan from Nippon Steel. Nippon Steel asking Nagatacho to add tariffs on Chinese steel will only raise the cost of steel for construction in Japan but does not itself make Nippon Steel more competitive.

There is nothing that would make a Japanese beam like the sunshine than to be able to say Nippon Steel not only kept all the workers in the Pittsburgh office but increased the overall number of employees and their salaries, pension and benefits as well. Nothing would make a Japanese more proud than to have US steel workers grateful for the Japanese maker's largesse but will this improve Nippon Steel's net income and profit? Will acquiring US Steel make Nippon Steel more competitive or will it be the trophy bald eagle in the room?

japan is an ally of the u.s., not an enemy.

u.s. steel is not some mega company, it's 26th in the world now and in the crapper.

if it is such a prize, where are u.s. investors? crickets, because they only know how to sell off some assets, steal the pension fund, then bleed the rest dry.

maybe u.s. steel needs to say that they're going to make ai steel with ai and sell it with ai. wall street fund managers would be tripping over themselves to get their clients to dump money into it.

it's ai !

If I were Nippon Steel I'd be staying right away from this deal. Nobody else wants it, not even the super patriotic American billionaires, then it must be a really bad investment.

US steel productivity would be a lesson insight for Nippon Steel.

@itsonlyrocknroll The U.S. can't teach Japan anything about steel productivity! 'Little' Japan produces more steel than the U.S! Japan is third for steel production behind China and India. The U.S. is fourth!

Foreigners should not own US national security assets. We're not talking about the Cheerios factory here. We're talking about the material that battleships are made of.

I don't give a damn how small their market share is right now; in wartime, it would and would be ramped up big time. It needs to remain in American hands.

So, do you want to support ancient steel mills run by backwards management who have failed to keep up with the rest of the industry with our hard earned tax dollars? Because no-one besides Nippon Steel is interested in investing in US Steel. If the short sighted stop this merger then the steel mills close or you end up pouring tax dollars into a bottomless pit subsidizing a backward industry. If you want to see what that kind of subsidy looks like study what the Jones Act has done to the US maritime industry.

USS may be killed by their greed.

they bought steelworks in Serbia,get a lot of of incentives from gov than when they have used,they left.same thing with VSZ in Slovakia,now USS factory there ready for sale as no more incentives from sk gov.

if they will be not saved by Nippon Steel that will close.for good.will be part of US steelmaking history.

Kamal may have no clue whatsoever as her priorities are "somewhere else"...

So, do you want to support ancient steel mills run by backwards management who have failed to keep up with the rest of the industry with our hard earned tax dollars?

You can make this kind of argument for anything. But national security is beyond all of the arguments. If Nippon Steel was 'willing' to protect US national interest, it would not launch a bid now and make it an election issue (IMHO).

Steel and energy in this cycle of friendshoring, reshoring and derisking are very sensitive topics. It's something that should be done outside of an election cycle.

basing my comment from this article. 1. Let the company default and then buy it out for less. 2. Payoff a few politicians. 3. Use the money and build a new plant like tsmc did in Arizona.

imo I don’t think any U.S. company will consider investing into a steel company. Trend shows they prefer technology based.

Foreigners should not own US national security assets. We're not talking about the Cheerios factory here. We're talking about the material that battleships are made of.

There are plenty of other steel makers in the US. Supply side aside, demand does not look to good either.

China has about 1800 (1794) orders for ship construction per year. This is the year end order book for large oceangoing ships per BRS Shipbrokers. South Korea 700 (734) Japan 600 (584) Europe 300 (319) and the US 5 (5). The previous year for the US was 3 and the year before that 4.

It is hard to price competitive with orders in the single digits. If you're protected from foreign competition, you also will not be cost competitive. If you cannot compete, it would make more sense to join forces.

Oh wait, Harris said the same. Sell it!

Exactly. People here were trying to convince us Kamala cares more about steel workers so she wants to block the sale lol They decided not to turn up here today even though it is top news on this site.

Yes, this conflict doesn't make sense. If US and Nippon Steel don't cooperate somehow, they become candidates for closure and their market share is taken over by the real rivals from India and China.

Back in the 1960s, before the US had trade deficits, excess American capital was heavily invested in European factories. This caused an uproar among many Europeans, and was seen as a takeover by America. After a decade or so passed, and American capital retreated from Europe, coinciding with the mounting trade deficits facing America, it became obvious that as long as the factories in Europe stayed open, who owned them temporarily was not the overwhelmingly important issue that it had appeared to be.

Americans need to learn the lesson that Europeans learned 50 years ago. Who owns the factories is not as important as keeping them open.

A generation ago, many American factories were shut down, while their machinery was shipped overseas, mostly to China. American workers even had to train foreign workers how to use the machinery before they were laid off from their jobs. The GOP controlled Congress of those times passed legislation, and Bush signed the bill into law, giving tax breaks to American companies that shipped their businesses overseas. Fast forward to today, and there are complaints about keeping American factories open, instead of shipping them overseas? There may be details to be worked out, but a solution that is good for all sides should be possible.

US is sinking itself by its own greed..

Keep making China's job easier to achieve world first place..

In fact, it's unavoidable..

China won't want to touch this, even with a barge pole.

Pukey2Sep. 5 11:13 pm JST

China won't want to touch this, even with a barge pole.

They would love the ability to own more critical US industry. Fortunately the US is long since past letting that happen.

You can make this kind of argument for anything. But national security is beyond all of the arguments. If Nippon Steel was 'willing' to protect US national interest, it would not launch a bid now and make it an election issue (IMHO).

The "national security" argument is the entire basis of the Jones Act, enacted way back in WWI when the US merchant marine and shipbuilding industry were judged wholly inadequate for supporting the US war effort. But fast forward a century and you see the result. The US maritime industry is almost hopelessly inefficient, grossly over priced and technically ages behind the global competition. In an era where shipyards around the world have backlogs of orders for new ships, US yards are completely unable to build the kinds of ships the world wants. The whole of the US shipbuilding industry has been so focused on building ships designed for the specifics of moving freight between US ports, smaller ships, and with no pressure from foreign competition the US cannot build things like Very Large Ore Carriers or LNG carriers. The US can't even build modern offshore support vessels for the oil and gas industry and now for offshore wind power. They have to team with foreign yards. The Philidelphia Shipyard, the old US Navy yard that was bought by private investors was going down fast for lack of orders and lack of technology so in the past couple of months one of the big South Korean shipbuilders bought that yard. That was the only thing that saved that yard.

wall street used to be a place where investments were made to build something or use capital to improve and expand something.

now, it just plays with money and financial products.

while politicians seek face time for feel good press, but waste enormous money unnecessarily.

chip plants in phoenix were already being built, and even starting operations using their own money and private investment. they didn’t need money. they had plenty.

then washington and arizona threw taxpayer money at them.

seriously? batpoop crazy.

Peter NeilSep. 5 07:38 am JST

let’s be fair and point out that trumpster opposes it also.

Perhaps, but he is also economically literate, something the Kamel is not, so he is the only one with the ability to work out a compromise if it is economically sound.