The White House suggested on Thursday that the $14 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel Corp. warrants a review by the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
The statement comes after U.S. Steel specifically requested a CFIUS review following calls from a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA) and J.D. Vance (R-OH), to investigate the deal.
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The White House had previously been questioned on the deal but declined to comment.
“The President believes U.S. Steel was an integral part of our arsenal of democracy in WWII and remains a core component of the overall domestic steel production that is critical to our national security. And he has been clear that we welcome manufacturers across the world building their futures in America with American jobs and American workers,” National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard wrote in a statement Thursday evening. “However, he also believes the purchase of this iconic American-owned company by a foreign entity — even one from a close ally — appears to deserve serious scrutiny in terms of its potential impact on national security and supply chain reliability.”
“This looks like the type of transaction that the interagency committee on foreign investment Congress empowered and the Biden Administration strengthened is set up to carefully investigate,” she continued. “This Administration will be ready to look carefully at the findings of any such investigation and to act if appropriate.”
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Brainard claimed that “steel is the backbone of American manufacturing on everything from infrastructure to cars to our clean energy future” and touted the 800,000 manufacturing jobs created during President Joe Biden’s three years in office.
“The United Steelworkers (USW) has been a leader in all of these efforts, and are an example of why union leadership is critical in building the economy from the middle out and bottom up. President Biden believes union workers are the best workers in the world,” she closed. “And that’s why his Administration is committed to doing everything it can to ensure steelworkers can compete on a level playing field, through policies that both combat unfair trade practices and recognize that a strong U.S. domestic steel industry is vital to our economy and national security.”
