U.S. President Donald Trump has signaled that Nippon Steel Corp. is considering investing in United States Steel Corp. instead of buying it outright, a potential resolution to the row over the Japanese company’s controversial bid to buy the iconic American company.
His comments add to investor concerns that the merger deal is effectively dead, disappointing U.S. Steel investors who had hoped Trump would change his mind and try to overturn his predecessor’s January decision to block the deal. While both companies are fighting that decision in court, the lawsuits are widely expected not to save the deal.
“They’ve agreed to invest heavily in U.S. Steel rather than own it, and that sounds very promising,” Trump said Friday at a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
U.S. Steel shares closed 5.8% lower at $36.98 in New York, well below Nippon Steel’s $55-a-share offer that both companies agreed to.
A Nippon Steel spokesman declined to comment on Trump’s comments. A US Steel spokesman could not be reached for comment.
Nippon Steel’s $14.1 billion bid for US Steel has become a political battleground during the 2024 US presidential election and has strained relations between the US and Japan, two normally staunch allies.
Supporters of the deal argue that selling US Steel to a company based in Japan, a US ally, would help attract investment to the US company’s aging plants, support a revival of the domestic steel sector and create scale to compete with Chinese rivals.
Critics argue that it would weaken union protections for steelworkers, potentially open the US to a flood of foreign steel and weaken the effectiveness of trade measures to support the rest of the industry.
Trump was vocal about his opposition to a foreign takeover of US Steel during the campaign, saying he disliked the idea of selling an iconic US firm headquartered in a politically important state to a foreign buyer. Vice President J.D. Vance also spoke out against the proposed deal, in which Nippon Steel would outbid Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., based in Ohio, the state he represented in the U.S. Senate.
Trump has been more reticent on the issue since taking office, leaving some of his supporters to see a way forward. But the president has also talked about plans to impose tariffs that he says will support the domestic steel industry, though he hasn’t said when — or at what rate — those tariffs would be imposed.
“U.S. Steel is a very important company to us, the greatest company in the world for 15 years, many years ago, 80 years ago,” Trump said Friday. “We didn’t want it to go away, and it hasn’t gone away, but the concept itself is psychologically wrong.”
