Trump emerges as Dealmaker-in-Chief on U.S. Steel
By Salena Zito, Washington Examiner – February 8, 2025
PITTSBURGH—President Donald Trump said Friday that Nippon Steel will drop its $14.1 billion bid to acquire U.S. Steel and instead invest heavily in the iconic American company without taking a majority stake.
Nippon Steel “is going to be doing something very exciting about US Steel,” Trump said with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba by his side. “They’ll be looking at an investment rather than a purchase.
“U.S. Steel is a very important company to us. It was the greatest company in the world for years, many years ago, 80 years ago. And we didn’t want to see that leave. And it wouldn’t actually leave. But the concept, psychologically, was not good. So they’ve agreed to invest heavily in U.S. Steel as opposed to own it, and that sounds very exciting.”
On Thursday, Trump met with U.S. Steel chief executive David Buritt at the White House. In December 2024, then-President Joe Biden blocked the $14.9 billion bid for U.S. Steel.
BRADDOCK, Pennsylvania — The Edgar Thomson Works, one of three U.S. Steel plants in the Monongahela River valley in Western Pennsylvania that were part of a controversial $14 billion sale to Nippon Steel. (Salena Zito/Washington Examiner)
During the campaign, Trump told me in Indiana, Pennsylvania, that he was for what the Steelworkers Union was for, and that was for the company to stay in U.S. hands.
In Western Pennsylvania, where three plants operate in the Mon Valley — the Edgar Thomson Works in Braddock, the Clairton Coke Works in Clairton, and the Irvin Plant in West Mifflin — the news was met with a combination of hope, relief, and cautious optimism.
Elected officials expressed optimism that the proposed infusion of investment from Nippon would keep their constituents’ livelihoods and communities in the valley secure.
State Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward said Trump has always fought for America, “so I had no doubt he would fight for the steelworkers and their families in southwestern Pennsylvania by taking a second look at the Nippon/U.S. Steel deal,” she said.
Youngstown State University political science professor Paul Sracic said the optics of having a Japanese company purchasing the country’s first billion-dollar company, and a symbol of American grit, were never great.
How the former president handled it was all wrong, Sracic said: “Biden couldn’t see past the optics, and Trump is a master of optics.”
“If this goes through as planned, this is a great example of Trump as dealmaker-in-chief, and it is not surprising, first of all, because Trump, during his first term, always valued the relationship with Japan and did a lot to strengthen it, so he has always understood the importance of relationships between the two countries,” Sracic said.
“It always made sense to do something,” he continued. “The problem was the optics. It always sounded bad for a Japanese company to buy an iconic American company.”
Still, U.S. Steel needed the investment, and Nippon was seeking access to the U.S. market.
“Trump found a way to basically give them both what they needed and, in the process, was able to stem a wound that could come between the two countries,” Sracic said.
TOP PHOTO: President Donald Trump said Friday that Nippon Steel will drop its $14.1 billion bid to acquire U.S. Steel and instead invest heavily in the iconic American company without taking a majority. | stakewashingtonexaminer.com