OPINION:
U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt took another run at persuading Donald Trump to change his mind and let the iconic Pittsburgh steelmaker be sold to Nippon Steel of Japan, Fox Business reported on Jan. 6.
He didn’t have much luck with the Biden administration, which announced last month that it opposed the $14 billion deal after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S,. which consists of the president’s Cabinet, expressed concerns about national security. Mr. Burritt said that U.S. Steel did everything right, and the administration instead “failed the company and its workers.”
Officially, he hasn’t had much more luck with the president-elect. Mr. Trump announced his opposition to the deal during the campaign and again last month after his victory. And he sounded resolute.
“I am totally against the once great and powerful U.S. Steel being bought by a foreign company, in this case Nippon Steel of Japan,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social in December. “As President, I will block this deal from happening.” Instead, Mr. Trump said, he would use tax incentives and tariffs to make U.S. Steel “strong and great again.”
But behind the scenes, Mr. Trump knows Nippon has developed capabilities that would enable U.S. Steel’s mills to provide good jobs and operate profitably for decades and that without these upgrades, U.S. Steel will cease to exist.
So he has since gotten Nippon Steel to agree not to reduce production capacity for 10 years at U.S. Steel’s mills in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Alabama, Texas, California and Arkansas without government approval. He has won a commitment to invest in the communities where it operates, including a $1 billion commitment in Gary, Indiana, and to invest in other communities where it manufactures steel.
Nippon Steel also agreed to pay $5,000 bonuses to all U.S. Steel employees and to give the U.S. government veto authority regarding its production capacity.
It’s not surprising Mr. Trump would stick up to preserve a brand as well known and strategically important as U.S. Steel. Pittsburgh’s NFL team is named for the company and displays the U.S. Steel logo on its helmets. And steel, of course, is a key part of war materiel, construction and other high-value products.
It is also not surprising that he is making a deal where President Biden couldn’t. Mr. Biden, who has no reason to pull punches, may have been punishing the workers for supporting Mr. Trump in the election over Vice President Kamala Harris.
Besides that, are there legitimate national security grounds here? Japan is as reliable an ally as we have right now and has been since the end of World War II. The controls Mr. Trump has negotiated seem to have addressed these concerns, so U.S. Steel’s CEO is cautiously optimistic that the deal will go through. And if Mr. Trump continues to block the deal, we’ll ironically have to buy more steel from China.
“Obviously we have a new president that will take a fresh look at this,” Mr. Burritt said on CNBC. “We understand what his current views are, but he’s a smart guy. He has the opportunity to have fresh eyes and do what’s right, and I believe strongly he will.”
Mr. Trump should also take advantage of his honeymoon phase to clean up the TikTok mess. There are security and First Amendment concerns there, and Mr. Trump’s new people on these issues are more than capable of striking that balance.
John Sauer, Mr. Trump’s pick for solicitor general, has already asked the Supreme Court to hold off on ruling on a lawsuit brought by TikTok’s owner to give Mr. Trump time to bring the parties together, get ownership out of Chinese hands and strike a deal that protects Americans and preserves our access to the platform.
We could have had a color-by-numbers government — that’s what Mr. Trump’s opponent offered — but we didn’t vote for that. We saw a need to think outside the box and look at challenges in new ways. We hired a dealmaker, and he could get off to a fast start if he can bring these two high-profile deals home.
• Brian McNicoll is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Virginia, a former senior writer for The Heritage Foundation and former director of communications for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
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