The chief executive of U.S. Steel appealed directly to President-elect Donald Trump to take a second look at a Japanese company’s $15 billion deal to buy the American steelmaker.
President Joe Biden blocked the deal between U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel on Friday, citing national security concerns after a key business-review panel failed to reach a consensus on whether the acquisition posed any risks. Both companies sued the administration over the decision.
Trump has also opposed Nippon’s purchase of the once-iconic Pittsburgh-based firm and again questioned the proposed sale Monday. But U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt told CNBC on Tuesday that he believes he can appeal to Trump’s business sensibilities.
“We have a new president that will take a fresh look at this. We understand what his current views are, but he’s a smart guy,” Burritt said.
He added that he hopes Trump will “see how this helps make U.S. Steel great again. And frankly, Nippon is going to pay for it,” he said, echoing Trump’s frequent assertions during the 2016 campaign that Mexico would pay for a wall along the U.S. southern border, which never came to pass.
A spokesperson for Trump referred to his earlier comments on the matter. A White House spokesperson reiterated a statement provided to NBC News on Monday night: “President Biden will never hesitate to protect the security of this nation, its infrastructure, and the resilience of its supply chains.”
Since Trump won the election, a deluge of business leaders have visited his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida as they seek to win favor with the incoming administration, among them Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Trump’s inaugural committee has also received millions in donations from Apple, Amazon, OpenAI, Uber, Meta and some of their executives personally.
Twenty mayors and community leaders in Pennsylvania and Indiana called on Biden to approve the deal in a letter late last month. On the opposite side, the United Steelworkers International union repeatedly pressed Biden to block the deal. It said last week said it had ‘no doubt that it’s the right move for our members and our national security,’ and it praised Biden’s decision Friday.
Burritt said any potential national security concerns about the agreement could be “easily mitigated.” He said Biden had “tainted” the process by making it clear since the deal was announced that he would side with unions and didn’t allow the review to “play out as it is supposed to.”
Burritt, the U.S. Steel chief, also dismissed Biden’s concerns that the company needed to remain American-owned and -operated for national security and supply chain reasons. “In fact, it strengthens national security, it strengthens economic security, it strengthens job security. In fact, it grows the business,” he said.
Burritt declined to speculate on what would happen to U.S. Steel if the company’s lawsuits or the incoming administration don’t change the outcome. “Nobody in the integrated mill space is better than Nippon, and they’re going to do great things for the workers here in Pennsylvania, in Indiana and all the places we do business.”
Nippon Steel has said there is “no reason to need to give up” on its deal. “This is not just the most important matter for our company’s business strategy. I am firmly convinced this is something extremely beneficial for both Japan and the United States,” its chairman and CEO told reporters Tuesday.
Both companies have emphasized in their lawsuits that “never before has a President prohibited an acquisition by a company based in Japan, one of our closest allies.”