ASSOCIATED PRESS – WASHINGTON (WBAP/KLIF) – Instead of offering to buy U.S. Steel, Japan will “invest heavily” into U.S. Steel, said President Donald Trump, and offer it’s latest technology, to “make a better quality product in the United States” in a “mutually beneficial deal”, according to Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in a news conference with President Donald Trump in Washington today.
A meeting between the pair arrived as U.S. Steel pushed Trump to reverse former President Joe Biden’s decision to block a takeover of the American company by Japan’s Nippon Steel.
In a news conference following their meeting Friday, Trump announced Japan’s Nippon Steel’s was dropping its $14.1 billion acquisition of the Pittsburgh-headquartered U.S. Steel and would instead be making an “investment, rather than a purchase.” Trump said he would “mediate and arbitrate” as the companies negotiate the investment. The U.S. president mistakenly referred to Nippon Steel as “Nissan,” the Japanese automaker.
U.S. Steel has warned that, without Nippon Steel’s cash, it would shift production away from the blast furnaces to cheaper non-union electric arc furnaces and move its headquarters out of Pittsburgh.
With the investment comes what Trump called an easing of the $68-billion trade deficit with Japan. Unlike Canada and Mexico, Trump has not called for tariffs against Japan to address that inbalance.
President Joe Biden before leaving office last month blocked the purchase, citing national security concerns. Trump in December said he was “totally against the once great and powerful U.S. Steel being bought by a foreign company.”
Details remain unclear. Trump said he would meet with the head of Nippon Steel next week “to mediate and arbitrate.”
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