Latest news with #DanielAVIS
Japan Today
24-05-2025
- Business
- Japan Today
Trump greenlights Nippon Steel 'partnership' with U.S. Steel
A view of the US Steel Edgar Thomson Works on January 21, 2020, in North Braddock, Pennsylvania By Daniel AVIS U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday threw his support behind a new "partnership" between U.S. Steel and Japan's Nippon Steel, sending the American firm's share price skyrocketing on hopes of an end to the long-running saga over foreign ownership of a key national asset. While the details of the deal remained unclear, the Pennsylvania-headquartered firm's share price popped after Trump took to Truth Social to hail the new arrangement, closing up more than 21 percent and then rising further in after-hours trading. "US Steel will REMAIN in America, and keep its Headquarters in the Great City of Pittsburgh," Trump said in his social media post. He added that the new "planned partnership" between U.S. Steel and Japan's Nippon Steel would create at least 70,000 jobs and add $14 billion to the U.S. economy. Trump's remarks are the latest in a long saga which began in December 2023, when U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel announced plans for a $14.9 billion merger. That deal was bitterly opposed by unions in part because it would have transferred ownership of the critical asset to a foreign company. In a statement, Nippon Steel said it "applauds" the bold action taken by Trump, adding it shared the administration's "commitment to protecting American workers, the American steel industry, and America's national security." U.S. Steel praised Trump's "bold" leadership on the deal, noting that it would "remain American" and expand in size due to the "massive investment" that Nippon would make over the next four years as part of the deal. Neither the White House nor the two companies, have so far published the details of the new partnership. The United Steelworkers' union (USW), which represents U.S. Steel employees and has long opposed the deal, said on Friday that it could not "speculate" on the impact of Trump's announcement without more information about the deal. "Our concern remains that Nippon, a foreign corporation with a long and proven track record of violating our trade laws, will further erode domestic steelmaking capacity and jeopardize thousands of good, union jobs," USW International President David McCall said in a statement shared with AFP. Nippon's acquisition of U.S. Steel was originally meant to close by the end of 2024's third financial quarter, but was then held up by former President Joe Biden, who blocked it in his last weeks in office on national security grounds. The two firms then filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration's "illegal interference" in the transaction. Trump previously opposed Nippon Steel's takeover plan, calling for U.S. Steel to remain domestically owned. But he has since softened his tone and has suggested he is open to some form of investment from Nippon. The U.S. president recently ordered his own review of the existing deal, directing the government's Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to look into the proposed acquisition. CFIUS, tasked with analyzing the national security implications of foreign takeovers of U.S. companies, was given 45 days to submit its recommendations to Trump. © 2025 AFP
Japan Today
17-05-2025
- Business
- Japan Today
U.S. loses last triple-A credit rating from Moody's over gov't debt
Moody's was the last of the three major credit ratings agencies to downgrade the United States, following in the footsteps of S&P and Fitch By Daniel AVIS The United States lost its last triple-A credit rating from a major agency Friday as Moody's announced a downgrade, citing rising levels of government debt and dealing a blow to Donald Trump's narrative of economic strength and prosperity. The downgrade to Aa1 from Aaa adds to the bad news for the U.S. president, coming on the same day his flagship spending bill failed to pass a key vote in Congress due to opposition from several Republican fiscal hawks. Explaining its decision, the ratings agency noted "the increase over more than a decade in government debt and interest payment ratios to levels that are significantly higher than similarly rated sovereigns." Moody's warned it expects federal deficits to widen to almost nine percent of economic output by 2035, up from 6.4 percent last year, "driven mainly by increased interest payments on debt, rising entitlement spending, and relatively low revenue generation." As a result, it expects the federal debt burden to increase to about 134 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035, compared to 98 percent last year. The White House took to X to push back, with communications director Steven Cheung calling one of the Moody report's authors "an Obama adviser and (Hillary) Clinton donor who has been a Never Trumper since 2016." "Nobody takes his 'analysis' seriously. He has been proven wrong time and time again," Cheung posted. Moody's decision to downgrade the United States from its top credit rating mirrors similar decisions from the two other major U.S. ratings agencies, S&P and Fitch. S&P was the first to cut its rating for the United States back in 2011, during Barack Obama's first term in office, citing its concerns that a debt management plan "would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics." Twelve years later, Fitch followed suit, warning of "a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters." Moody's echoed its peers in its decision Friday, noting in a statement that "successive U.S. administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs." "We do not believe that material multi-year reductions in mandatory spending and deficits will result from current fiscal proposals under consideration," it added, flagging that it expected larger deficits to continue over the next decade. America's "fiscal performance is likely to deteriorate relative to its own past and compared to other highly-rated sovereigns," Moody's said. For Republican congressman French Hill, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, the Moody's downgrade "is a strong reminder that our nation's fiscal house is not in order." House Republicans "are committed to taking steps to restore fiscal stability, address the structural drivers of our debt, and foster a pro-growth economic environment," he said. The Moody's decision comes amid a tough fight in Congress to pass Trump's much-touted "big, beautiful" spending bill, which aims to revamp and renew a roughly $5 trillion extension of his 2017 tax relief, paid for at least partially through deep cuts to the Medicaid health insurance program that covers more than 70 million low-income people. On Friday, the agency also changed its outlook from "negative" to "stable," noting that despite the United States' poor record tackling rising government debt levels, the country "retains exceptional credit strengths such as the size, resilience and dynamism of its economy and the role of the U.S. dollar as global reserve currency." © 2025 AFP
