Donald Trump claimed on Friday that a “planned partnership” between Nippon Steel and US Steel would deliver “at least 70,000 jobs” to American workers and inject $14 billion into the economy.
But that figure overshoots by a long shot — more than five times the number of employees US Steel currently has in the United States. The number raised eyebrows, not because it was big, but because nobody — not Nippon, not the unions, not the investors — can figure out where the hell he got it from.
According to Bloomberg, after over 17 months of negotiations, Nippon Steel believed it had finally secured the $14.1 billion takeover of US Steel, but Trump’s statement muddied the waters. He didn’t actually say the buyout was approved.
He just declared that US Steel would “remain American.” That line, dropped on social media, landed hard and fast. Yet, he gave no specifics, no follow-up from the White House, and no timeline for next steps.
Publicly, both Nippon Steel and US Steel cheered what they called a “bold” moment and embraced the idea of a new partnership. But neither addressed the actual takeover deal. US Steel’s stock, meanwhile, jumped as much as 26% in Friday trading and closed 21% higher at $52.01, even though the company had already agreed to a $55 per share buyout in cash back in December 2023.
Trump’s approval, if that’s even what it was, contradicts his own words from December, when he wrote that he was “totally against the once great and powerful US Steel being bought by a foreign company.” At the time, that rare stance put him in line with Joe Biden, who blocked the deal in January on the advice of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
Suddenly pivoting now raises real questions about how far Trump is willing to go to appease Japan, especially while both countries are deep in tariff talks. Last week, Ryosei Akazawa, Japan’s top trade negotiator, met in Washington with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
A few days earlier, Trump had a call with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. The two agreed to meet in Canada next month during the G7 leaders’ summit. The timing is everything. The tariff issue is boiling.
Japan is facing a 25% tariff on cars, steel, and aluminum, plus a 10% duty on all other goods that could rise to 24% in July if there’s no new trade deal. Car companies like Toyota have already flagged billions in profit losses, and Ishiba’s government is staring at a possible recession after last quarter’s contraction.
Union rejects deal while confusion grows over future ownership
Akazawa, speaking to reporters on Friday, refused to comment on the steel situation, saying they’d wait for an official statement. On tariffs, he acknowledged the June meeting but stressed, “It’s unwise to rush any agreement.” He’s expected to return to Washington on May 30 to meet Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who’s been involved in the last two rounds of negotiations.
While Japan pushes for answers, the workers on the ground in America remain skeptical. The United Steelworkers union, which oversees labor at US Steel’s major integrated plants across the Rust Belt, isn’t sold on any of this.
Their president, David McCall, said from the beginning that Nippon Steel didn’t consult with the union before announcing the deal. He’s not buying their promises now either. “Their ‘promise’ is always made with exceptions to back out of the statements,” McCall said in a text message this week. “Nothing makes me think this one is anything but another desperate attempt.”
That “attempt” includes maintaining plants that are decades old, run on high-cost systems, and will need serious investment to stay open. Advocates of the deal say Nippon Steel will fix them up, bring in new tech, and upgrade capacity. But again, they haven’t said how much they’d spend or when they’d start.
Nippon, for its part, called the partnership “a game changer” in a brief statement, saying it benefits US Steel, the American steel industry, and the broader manufacturing base. But investors want more than slogans. And so far, that’s all they’ve been handed.
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