Trump: US Steel to remain 'American company'
US President Donald Trump says the company US Steel, which had been the target of a takeover bid by Japan's Nippon Steel, will remain in America.
At a rally in the state of Pennsylvania on Friday, Trump said: "We're here today to celebrate a blockbuster agreement that will ensure this storied American company stays an American company. You're going to stay in American company."
He added that Nippon Steel will invest 14 billion dollars in US Steel, describing it as the largest investment in the history of Pennsylvania and in the history of the steel industry.
He also announced plans to raise tariffs on imported steel to 50 percent from 25 percent.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yomiuri Shimbun
8 hours ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Rump Reiterates U.S. Steel To ‘Remain American Company'; Pledges No Layoffs, Furnaces at Full Capacity for 10 Years
Hiroyuki Tanaka / The Yomiuri Shimbun Nippon Steel Corp. Vice Chairman Takahiro Mori, right, delivers a speech beside U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt, left, at a rally in West Mifflin, Penn., on Friday. WEST MIFFLIN, Penn. — U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated that he welcomed Nippon Steel Corp. only as a partner for U.S. Steel Corp., at a rally held Friday in West Mifflin, Penn. Trump appears to believe that he can tout huge investments in and the preservation of jobs at U.S. Steel as his achievements, while the U.S. government maintains influence over the steelmaker's management on the grounds that it is necessary for national security. In his address Friday, Trump said that Pittsburgh, where U.S. Steel's head office is located, 'will be respected around the world as the steel city again.' As in earlier remarks, Trump did not use the word 'purchase,' presumably because he did not want to damage his trademark image of 'America first.' Trump told the audience, 'You're going to stay an American company' and that U.S. Steel would continue to be 'controlled by the USA,' appealing to employees of U.S. Steel attending the rally. The president also showed a conciliatory attitude toward Nippon Steel. He mentioned company Vice Chairman Takahiro Mori, who spoke before Trump at the rally, saying that the purchase plan is a business deal that Mori had considered for many years. 'Thank you, Takahiro,' Trump said at one point. Trump did not mention any details about Nippon Steel's acquisition plan, but he repeatedly referred to the practical management of U.S. Steel. He said, for example, that U.S. Steel's blast furnaces will continue to be operated at full capacity for the coming 10 years and employees will not be laid off. These remarks were apparently meant to show consideration for U.S. Steel employees and voters in Pennsylvania, as Trump had been negative in the past about Nippon Steel's plan to purchase U.S. Steel. Trump revealed that Nippon Steel will invest $14 billion to improve blast furnaces and other facilities. An executive of Nippon Steel praised Trump's stance after listening to his address. 'He also spoke about investments after the purchase and the provision of bonuses. We clearly saw progress in his remarks in this speech,' the executive said. Hiroyuki Tanaka / The Yomiuri Shimbun Nippon Steel Corp. Vice Chairman Takahiro Mori, right, delivers a speech beside U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt, left, at a rally in West Mifflin, Penn., on Friday. SNS: U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated that Nippon Steel Corp. is only a partner for U.S. Steel Corp., at a rally held Friday in Pennsylvania
Japan Times
8 hours ago
- Japan Times
Trump tariffs face threat at top court — over rulings that blocked Biden
A legal argument that the U.S. Supreme Court used to foil Joe Biden on climate change and student debt now looms as a threat to President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs. During Biden's presidency, the court's conservative majority ruled that federal agencies can't decide sweeping political and economic matters without clear congressional authorization. That blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from setting deep limits on power-plant pollution and the Education Department from slashing student loans for 40 million people. The concept — known as the "major questions doctrine' — is now playing a central role in the case against Trump's unilateral imposition of worldwide import taxes. With Supreme Court review all but inevitable, the justices' willingness to employ the doctrine against Trump may determine the fate of his signature economic initiative. The U.S. Court of International Trade cited the Biden-era rulings and the major questions doctrine when it ruled 3-0 last week that many of Trump's import taxes exceeded the authority Congress had given him. The challenged tariffs would total an estimated $1.4 trillion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. Critics say the administration's tariffs would have an even bigger impact than the estimated $400 billion Biden student-loan package, which Chief Justice John Roberts described as having "staggering' significance in his 2023 opinion invalidating the plan. "If this is not a major question, then I don't know what is,' said Ilya Somin, a professor at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School and one of the lawyers challenging the tariffs. "We're talking about the biggest trade war since the Great Depression.' Until they were partly suspended, Trump's April 2 "Liberation Day' tariffs marked the biggest increase in import taxes pushed by the U.S. since the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariffs and took the U.S.'s average applied tariff rate to its highest level in more than a century. The prospect of that massive tax increase and the resulting economic shock roiled financial markets and prompted fears of imminent recessions in the U.S. and other major global economies. The administration contends that the major questions doctrine doesn't apply when Congress gives authority directly to the president, rather than to an administrative agency. The government also says the doctrine is inapt when the subject is national security and foreign affairs — policy areas where the president has long been recognized to have broad powers. "No one doubts the significance of the challenged tariffs, but significance alone does not implicate the major questions doctrine, otherwise, it would apply to countless government actions, including every emergency statute,' the Justice Department said in a filing at the Court of International Trade. The legal clash centers on Trump's power under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which says the president may "regulate' the "importation' of property to address an emergency situation. The Court of International Trade said those words weren't clear enough to legally justify Trump's taxes given that the Constitution gives the tariff power to Congress. In addition to major questions, the panel also invoked the nondelegation doctrine, a related conservative-backed legal theory that says lawmakers can't give away their constitutional legislative and taxing powers. The two doctrines together "provide useful tools for the court to interpret statutes so as to avoid constitutional problems,' the trade court said. "These tools indicate that an unlimited delegation of tariff authority would constitute an improper abdication of legislative power to another branch of government.' The ruling is now on temporary hold while a federal appeals court considers whether to keep the tariffs in force as the legal fight continues. So far, the major questions doctrine has divided the Supreme Court cleanly along ideological lines. The six conservative justices were united when the court first used the phrase in a 2022 ruling that said the EPA overstepped its authority with an ambitious emissions-reduction program during Barack Obama's presidency. The majority said it was doing nothing new by subjecting the plan to extra-tough scrutiny. "We 'typically greet' assertions of 'extravagant statutory power over the national economy' with 'skepticism,'' Roberts wrote, borrowing words from a 2014 ruling. Roberts said the court used similar reasoning, though without the "major questions' label, when it blocked Biden's pandemic eviction moratorium and his vaccine-or-test mandate for workers. The court's liberals accused their conservative colleagues of creating a convenient exception to their usual laserlike focus on statutory text. "The current court is textualist only when being so suits it,' Justice Elena Kagan said in dissent in the climate case. "When that method would frustrate broader goals, special canons like the 'major questions doctrine' magically appear as get-out-of-text-free cards.' The sharp ideological divide masks a more subtle split among the court's conservatives about the purpose of the major questions doctrine. Justice Amy Coney Barrett has described it as a tool for ascertaining the most natural reading of a statute, while Justice Neil Gorsuch has cast it as a means of keeping Congress and the president in their proper constitutional lanes. The key question now is what the court will do with the major questions doctrine when it comes in the context of tariffs and a Republican president who appointed three of the justices. "The court has not been at all transparent about the grounds on which it will invoke this doctrine,' said Ronald Levin, an administrative law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. "It's left its options completely open.'
Japan Times
9 hours ago
- Japan Times
Trump pulls Musk ally's NASA nomination, will announce replacement
The White House on Saturday withdrew its nominee for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, abruptly yanking a close ally of Elon Musk from consideration to lead the space agency. President Donald Trump will announce a new candidate soon, said White House spokeswoman Liz Huston. "It is essential that the next leader of NASA is in complete alignment with President Trump's America First agenda and a replacement will be announced directly by President Trump soon," she said. Isaacman, a billionaire private astronaut who had been Musk's pick to lead NASA, was due next week for a much-delayed confirmation vote before the U.S. Senate. His removal from consideration caught many in the space industry by surprise. The White House did not explain what led to the decision. Isaacman, whose removal was earlier reported by news outlet Semafor, did not return a request for comment. Isaacman's removal comes just days after Musk's official departure from the White House, where the SpaceX CEO's role as a "special government employee" leading the Department of Government Efficiency created turbulence for the administration and frustrated some of Trump's aides. Musk, according to a person familiar with his reaction, was disappointed by Isaacman's removal and considered it to be politically motivated. "It is rare to find someone so competent and good-hearted," Musk wrote of Isaacman on X, replying to the news of the White House's decision. Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was unclear whom the administration might tap to replace Isaacman. One name being floated is retired U.S. Air Force Lt. General Steven Kwast, an early advocate for the creation of the U.S. Space Force and Trump supporter, according to three people familiar with the discussions. Isaacman, the former CEO of payment processor company Shift4, had broad space industry support but drew concerns from lawmakers over his ties to Musk and SpaceX, where he spent hundreds of millions of dollars as an early private spaceflight customer. The former nominee had donated to Democrats in prior elections. In his confirmation hearing in April, he sought to balance NASA's existing moon-aligned space exploration strategy with pressure to shift the agency's focus on Mars, saying the U.S. can plan for travel to both destinations. As a potential leader of NASA's some 18,000 employees, Isaacman faced a daunting task of implementing that decision to prioritize Mars, given that NASA has spent years and billions of dollars trying to return its astronauts to the moon. On Friday, the space agency released new details of the Trump administration's 2026 budget plan that proposed killing dozens of space science programs and laying off thousands of employees, a controversial overhaul that space advocates and lawmakers described as devastating for the agency.
