Trump approves Nippon Steel's $14.9 billion purchase of US Steel
U.S. President Donald Trump approved Nippon Steel's $14.9 billion bid for U.S. Steel on Friday, capping a tumultuous 18-month effort by the companies that survived union opposition and two national security reviews.
Trump signed an executive order saying the tie-up could move forward if the companies sign an agreement with the Treasury Department resolving national security concerns posed by the deal. The companies then announced they had signed the agreement, fulfilling the conditions of Trump's directive and effectively garnering approval for the merger.
'We look forward to putting our commitments into action to make American steelmaking and manufacturing great again,' the companies said in the statement, thanking Trump.
They added the agreement includes $11 billion in new investments to be made by 2028 as well as governance, production and trade commitments. Nippon Steel will buy a 100% stake in U.S. Steel, a spokesperson for the Japanese company in Tokyo said on Saturday.
The steelmakers provided no detail on the 'golden share' they pledged to issue to the U.S. government, raising questions about the extent of U.S. control. U.S. Senator David McCormick of Pennsylvania, where U.S. Steel is headquartered, said last month the golden share would give the government veto power over key decisions relating to the American steel icon.
Reuters has reported that Nippon Steel would invest an additional $3 billion for a new mill after 2028.
The takeover will set up the ailing U.S. firm to receive the critical investment, allowing Nippon Steel to capitalize on a host of American infrastructure projects while its foreign competitors face steel tariffs of 50%. The Japanese firm also avoids the $565 million in breakup fees it would have had to pay if the companies had failed to secure approvals.
For Nippon Steel, the world's fourth-biggest steelmaker, securing a foothold in the U.S. is key to its global growth strategy. The U.S. steel market, including high-grade steel, Nippon Steel's specialty, is growing amid rising global trade tensions.
'GREAT PARTNER'
Still, some Nippon Steel investors are concerned about short-term financial pressure due to the scale of the additional investment commitment.
The Japanese government, rushing to try to secure a trade deal with the U.S. by the time Trump and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba meet at the Group of Seven summit starting on Sunday, applauded the Nippon-U.S. Steel agreement.
'The government of Japan welcomes the U.S. government's decision, as we believe this investment will enhance innovation capabilities in the U.S. and Japanese steel industries and further strengthen the close partnership between our two countries,' Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yoji Muto said in a statement on Saturday.
Friday's announcement was hardly guaranteed, even if many investors had seen approval as likely after Trump headlined a rally on May 30 giving his vague blessing to an 'investment' by Nippon Steel, which he described as a 'great partner.'
Shares of U.S. Steel had dipped earlier on Friday after a Nippon Steel executive told Japan's Nikkei newspaper that the takeover required 'a degree of management freedom' to go ahead after Trump said the U.S. would be in control with the golden share.
The bid has faced opposition since Nippon Steel launched it in December 2023.
After the United Steelworkers union came out against the deal last year, both then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and Trump, a Republican, expressed their opposition as they sought to woo voters in the presidential campaign in the swing state of Pennsylvania.
Shortly before leaving office in January, Biden blocked the deal on national security grounds, prompting lawsuits by the companies, which argued the national security review they received was biased. The Biden White House disputed the charge.
The steel companies saw a new opportunity in the Trump administration, which opened a fresh 45-day national security review into the proposed merger in April.
But Trump's public comments, ranging from welcoming a simple 'investment' in U.S. Steel by the Japanese firm to floating a minority stake for Nippon Steel, spurred confusion.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
4 hours ago
- The Star
Trump reports more than $600 million in income from crypto, golf, licensing fees
(Reuters) -Donald Trump reported more than $600 million in income from crypto, golf clubs, licensing and other ventures in a public financial disclosure report released on Friday that provided a glimpse of the vast business holdings of America's billionaire president. The annual financial disclosure form, which appeared to cover the 2024 calendar year, shows the president's push into crypto added substantially to his wealth but he also reported large fees from developments and revenues from his other businesses. Overall, the president reported assets worth at least $1.6 billion, a Reuters calculation shows. While Trump has said he has put his businesses into a trust managed by his children, the disclosures show how income from those sources still ultimately accrue to the president - something that has opened him to accusations of conflicts of interest. Some of his businesses in areas such as crypto, for example, benefit from U.S. policy shifts under him and have become a source of criticism. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The financial disclosure was signed on June 13 and did not state the time period it covered. The details of the cryptocurrency listings, as well as other information in the disclosure, suggest it was through the end of December 2024, which would exclude most of the money raised by the family's cryptocurrency ventures. Given the speed at which the Trump family has made deals during his ascent to the presidency, the filing is already a time capsule of sorts, capturing a period when the family was just starting to get into crypto but was largely still in the world of real estate deals and golf clubs. A meme coin released earlier this year by the president - $TRUMP - alone has earned an estimated $320 million in fees, although it's not publicly known how that amount has been divided between a Trump-controlled entity and its partners. In addition to the meme coin fees, the Trump family has raked in more than $400 million from World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance company. The Trump family is involved, also, with a bitcoin mining operation and digital asset exchange-traded funds. In the disclosures, Trump reported $57.35 million from token sales at World Liberty. He also reported holding 15.75 billion governance tokens in the venture. TRUMP MEDIA The wealth of the Republican businessman-turned-politician ranges from crypto to real estate, and a large part on paper is tied up in his stake in Trump Media & Technology Group, owner of social media platform Truth Social. Besides assets and revenues from his business ventures, the president reported at least $12 million in income, including through interest and dividends, from passive investments totaling at least $211 million, a Reuters calculation shows. His biggest investments were in alternative fund manager Blue Owl Capital Corp and in government bond funds managed by Charles Schwab and Invesco. The disclosure often only gave ranges for the value of his assets and income; Reuters used the lower amount listed, meaning the total value of his assets and income was almost certainly higher. The disclosure showed income from various assets including Trump's properties in Florida. Trump's three golf-focused resorts in the state - Jupiter, Doral and West Palm Beach - plus his nearby private members' club at Mar-a-Lago generated at least $217.7 million in income, according to the filing. Trump National Doral, the expansive Miami-area golf hub known for its Blue Monster course, was the family's single largest income source at $110.4 million. The income figures provided are essentially revenues, not net profits after subtracting costs. The disclosure underlined the global nature of the Trump family business, listing income of $5 million in license fees from a development in Vietnam, $10 million in development fees from a project in India and almost $16 million in licensing fees for a Dubai project. Trump collected royalty money, also, from a variety of deals - $1.3 million from the Greenwood Bible (its website describes it as "the only Bible officially endorsed by Lee Greenwood and President Trump"); $2.8 million from Trump Watches, and $2.5 million from Trump Sneakers and Fragrances. Trump listed $1.16 million in income from his NFTs - digital trading cards in his likeness - while First Lady Melania Trump earned around $216,700 from license fees on her own NFT collection. (Reporting by Lawrence Delevingne, Tom Bergin, Tom Lasseter, Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Jim Oliphant; Editing by Sandra Maler, Paritosh Bansal, Megan Davies, Will Dunham and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
New Straits Times
4 hours ago
- New Straits Times
Netanyahu's obsession with Iran goes back a long way
ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nearly 20-year-old threat to strike Iran came true on Friday, as US President Donald Trump warned Teheran of further "brutal" attacks if it refuses to negotiate. In its largest military action against Iran to date, Israel's strikes hit about 100 targets, including nuclear facilities and military command centres, and killed the armed forces' chief, top nuclear scientists and other senior figures. The strikes came as the United States and Iran were due to meet in Oman today to pick up negotiations towards an agreement on the Islamic republic's nuclear programme. "We are fairly close to a pretty good agreement," Trump said on Thursday, hours before news broke of the Israeli attacks. "I don't want them going in, because I think it would blow it," Trump added, speaking of the Israelis. But on Friday, Trump seemed unbothered by Israel's action, and on his Truth Social platform urged Iran to make a deal. "There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end," he wrote. Netanyahu, who has always scorned talks with Iran, paid no heed to Trump's original warning and took advantage of the seismic changes in the Middle East since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023. "I doubt Israel would do this if the US told it not to," Menachem Merhavy, an Iran expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said. Merhavy said the timing of the attack "makes sense because Israel has been clipping the wings of Iran for the last year and a half", in actions against Tehran-aligned groups and proxies in the region, many of whom Israel has significantly weakened. Netanyahu said he had "ordered" the attack on Iran's nuclear programme months ago. "It was necessary to act and I set the implementation date for the end of April 2025," Netanyahu said. "For various reasons, it did not work out." But his obsession with Iran goes back much further than the ongoing Gaza war, sparked by an unprecedented attack by Tehran-backed Hamas. After Iran's former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad caused international uproar in 2005 when he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map", Netanyahu — then an opposition leader following his first term as premier in 1996-1999 — called Tehran's nuclear programme "a serious threat for the future". At the time, he said Israel "must do everything" to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb, even if it meant striking the country's nuclear facilities as Israel had in Iraq in 1981. Iran has consistently denied seeking atomic weapons, but after his return to power in 2009, Netanyahu repeatedly dismissed Tehran's assurances that its nuclear programme was meant for civilian purpose only, and advocated a "military option". Netanyahu called the United Nations Security Council's 2015 approval of an agreement with world powers lifting sanctions in exchange for curbs on Iran's nuclear activities a "historic mistake". In 2018, he applauded Trump's decision to withdraw the US from the agreement, effectively scrapping it. Iran's reaction was to gradually abandon its commitments, enriching uranium to levels close to weapons-grade material and in unprecedented quantities. This gave Netanyahu a justification to keep up the fight against Iran's nuclear programme. All the while, Israel's Mossad spy agency worked in secret to undermine Iran's nuclear programme. Since the start of the Gaza war, Netanyahu has said on several occasions he was seeking to "reshape the Middle East". Late last year, Israel dealt a hard blow to Iran's so-called "axis of resistance" by crippling Lebanese armed group Hizbollah. The fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, another Iranian ally, helped cement the regional dominance of Israel — the Middle East's only, if undeclared, nuclear power. But it was an Israeli response to 200 Iranian missiles last October that "changed the balance of power" between the two foes, according to statements at the time by then defence minister Yoav Gallant, after a series of Israeli strikes inside Iran — a rare direct confrontation.
New Straits Times
5 hours ago
- New Straits Times
Ukraine warns against drop in aid due to Israel-Iran escalation
KYIV: Ukraine said on Saturday it hoped the military escalation between Israel and Iran would not lead to a drop in aid to Kyiv, at a time when European support is stalling without US engagement. Israel unleashed large-scale attacks on Iran on Friday, targeting nuclear and military facilities, high-ranking generals and atomic scientists. Iran in return launched barrages of drones and missile at Israel. The escalation sparked international calls for restraint as fears of broader conflict grow. In Kyiv it also sparked anxiety about future supplies of military aid, fearing Washington might relocate more resources to beef up the defence of its close ally Israel. "We would like to see aid to Ukraine not decrease because of this," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. "Last time, this was a factor that slowed down aid to Ukraine." The Ukrainian leader warned that Europe's support was already stalling without Washington's engagement. "Europe has not yet decided for itself what it will do with Ukraine if America is not there," he said. The return to the White House of US President Donald Trump has upended the West's provision of aid to Kyiv. It has left Europe scrambling to work out how it can fill any gap in supplies if Trump decides to pull US military, financial and intelligence support. Zelenskyy urged the United States to "shift tone" in its dialogue with Russia, saying it was "too warm" and would not help to end the war. Trump has sought rapprochement with Moscow and held three phone calls with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin so far this year. He has stunned Nato allies with the stark change in policy from that of the previous US administration, which aborted almost all contacts with Moscow after Russia invaded Ukraine. The Israeli attacks on Iran also drove oil prices up, which Zelenskyy said would benefit Russia. "The attacks led to a sharp rise in oil prices. This is bad for us," he added, reiterating a call for the West to introduce price caps on Russian oil exports. The Ukrainian leader said he hoped to raise the issue of price caps at a possible meeting with Trump in the near future. He added, however, that the Israeli strikes might prove favourable for Kyiv if they lead to a drop in Iranian supplies of military equipment to Russia, which has relied heavily on Iranian-made attack drones. EXCHANGING PRISONERS Ukraine and Russia exchanged prisoners on Saturday, the fourth such swap this week, under agreements clinched in Istanbul earlier this month. Kyiv also said it had stopped Russian advances in the northeastern Sumy region. The deals to hand over killed soldiers and exchange captured ones are the only agreements to have come out of two rounds of peace talks in Istanbul. Russia has rejected calls to halt its three-year invasion. It has demanded Ukraine cede even more territory and renounce Western military support if it wants peace. Since Russia invaded in February 2022, the war has forced millions of people to flee their homes as towns and cities across eastern Ukraine have been flattened by heavy bombardments. As part of the Istanbul agreements, Kyiv also said it had received another 1,200 unidentified bodies from Russia. It said Moscow had said they were those of "Ukrainian citizens, including military personnel" Ukraine did not say whether it returned any bodies to Russia. Meanwhile, Russia intensified its offensive along the front line, especially in the northeastern Sumy region, where it seeks to establish a "buffer zone". This zone is designed, ostensibly, to protect the Russian border region of Kursk, previously partly occupied by Ukraine. Zelenskyy said Russia's advance on Sumy was stopped and that Kyiv's forces had managed to retake one village.
