The US senator John Fetterman has vowed to block the multibillion-dollar sale of US Steel to the Japanese company Nippon Steel, calling the potential deal “outrageous”.
The former mayor of the south-west Pennsylvania town of Braddock, which is home to a major US Steel plant, Fetterman has long advocated for the rights of American steel workers and positioned himself as a pro-union Democrat.
In the video posted to X and taken from the roof of his house in Braddock, which overlooks the plant, Fetterman criticized the proposed $14.9bn sale, decrying US Steel for selling itself “to a foreign nation and company”.
“Steel is always about security,” Fetterman said. “And I am committed to anything I can do, from using my platform or my position, in order to block this.
The acquisition of @U_S_Steel by a foreign company is wrong for workers and wrong for Pennsylvania. I’m gonna do everything I can to block it. pic.twitter.com/9EqohwRhRJ
— Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) December 18, 2023
“I’m going to fight for the steelworkers and their union way of life here as well, too.”
The acquisition was announced on Monday and saw US Steel’s stock price jump 25%. The company confirmed the deal in a statement on Tuesday, saying its board unanimously approved the acquisition and calling Nippon Steel “a global leader in steelmaking, innovation and decarbonization”.
The United Steelworkers (USW) union, meanwhile, denounced Nippon Steel for agreeing to an acquisition deal without prior approval from the union, Axios reported.
David McCall, the president, called the deal “greedy” and a “violation” of a union agreement that requires any buyer of US Steel to agree to a new labor agreement prior to any sale.
“Neither US Steel nor Nippon reached out to our union regarding the deal, which is in itself a violation of our partnership agreement that requires US Steel to notify us of a change in control or business conditions,” McCall told Axios, calling the sale “shortsighted”.
A previous buyout offer in August, worth $7.3bn, by rival company Cleveland Cliffs, was rejected by US Steel. That offer did have the support of the USW union, which praised the Ohio-based Cleveland Cliffs as being “in the best position to ensure that US-based manufacturing remains strong in this country”, and noted it didn’t cut jobs during previous acquisitions in 2019 and 2020.
