Cnn
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Friday, President Donald Trump goes to Pittsburgh to celebrate an agreement he swore to oppose – the Japanese plans of Nippon Nippon steel steel steel to buy the emblematic American steel US Steel.
The agreement to buy a Japanese American company attracted bipartite opposition. President Joe Biden blocked On national security grounds shortly before leaving office. But a week ago, Trump announced that he approve the agreementAlthough he described it as a “partnership” between the two companies, not as a purchase. Questioned on Sunday on the agreement, he told journalists “it is an investment, and it will be a partial property (by Nippon.)”
“It will be controlled by the United States, otherwise I did not conclude the agreement,” he said.
Trump is expected to appear in an American steel factory just outside Pittsburgh. The appearance and its last announcement seems to open the way to the controversial agreement at a time when the long-standing allies of Japan and the United States are found in the middle of a trade war.
Trump threatens increased prices on Japan American imports and has already imposed prices on all steel imports. It also introduces foreign property to a company which was once a symbol of American industrial power which has become a reflection after fighting in the modern American economy.
But the real terms of the agreement have not been disclosed since this announcement last week. From the outside, it seems that Nippon will always buy all the actions in circulation of US Steel for $ 55 per share, or approximately $ 12.5 billion, under the terms of an agreement announced for the first time in December 2023. Trump said he also agreed to invest $ 14 billion in US US operations.
Neither companies have commented on the terms of the agreement since Trump’s announcement. But the United Steelworkers, who represent US Steel’s hourly workers in Pennsylvania and in Indiana, said that he does not drop his opposition, because he thinks that the agreement still represents a full purchase of Japanese.
“The last” partnership “announcement continues to raise more questions than answers,” said the union declaration. “Japanese still maintains that he would only invest in American steel installations if it had the company.
Even if Nippon has all the actions, it will be apparently with restrictions. The “control” that Trump refers to the will will probably come from the federal government with “gold actions” of American steel as an approval condition. This allows the government to approve the majority of members of the company’s board of directors, who will all be Americans, said Pennsylvania senator David McCormick CNBC.
“This will allow the United States to ensure that production levels are not reduced,” McCormick, the Republican senator of Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
A week after the announcement, none of the companies has yet said to what extent our Japanese steel will be the owner.
“Us Steel will remain American, and we will become bigger and stronger thanks to a partnership with Nippon Steel which provides massive investments, new technologies and thousands of jobs over the next four years,” the company said in a statement last Friday after Trump’s announcement.
While Trump has repeatedly sworn to block the agreement on the campaign track, he reported since he was in office that he could be opened to the agreement after all. In March, the administration filed a request to extend two deadlines In an American trial Steel and Nippon Steel filed against the United States foreign investment committee, which examines foreign investments for national security risks. Trump then ordered a new acquisition review in April.
Trump said on Sunday that members of the Congress had pushed to approval the agreement, as well as local unions representing time workers in Us Steel. But officials of the National Union continue to urge Trump to block the agreement, calling it a “disaster for American acid workers, our national security and the future of American manufacturing”.
Us Steel threatened that he would be forced to close some of his old and unionized factories unless the agreement is concluded and that he obtains the investment dollars necessary to modernize.
But the USW said that its long-term Japanese long-term objective was to move production to its non-unionized operations in Texas or import Japan steel to be completed in the United States, ending the integrated steel production of the company.
Nippon Steel, however, promised to honor the union’s contract with US Steel and invest billions in integrated factories in Pennsylvania and Indiana.
In pictures: the history of American steel
American steel was once a Symbol of American industrial domination. It was the most precious company In the world and the first to be worth $ 1 billion, shortly after its creation in 1901. It was also crucial for the American economy for a large part of the 20th century, providing the steel necessary to build cars, household appliances, bridges and skyscrapers, as well as weapons that helped win the war of war II.
But he has suffered decades of decline since his height of the World War II. It is no longer the largest American stereen and a relatively minor employer, with 14,000 US employees – including 11,000 USW members.
But it is still not a company that politicians who like to talk about American size want to see falling into foreign hands – especially in the politically significant state of the Pennsylvania. Thus, those who support the agreement have done everything possible to suggest that he will remain American, with a CEO and American head office in Pittsburgh, even if it becomes a subsidiary in exclusive property of a foreign rival.
