The Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel will sue the US for blocking the merger with US Steel | Economy | EUROtoday

The Japanese metal firm Nippon Steel will sue the United States Government after the choice of President Joe Biden to dam the operation for it to accumulate US Steel, sources near the matter assured the Japanese information company this Saturday. Kyodo. The assertion comes hours after each metal firms printed a joint assertion by which they condemned Biden’s determination and thought of that the process was unlawful for not complying with the rules governing the Committee on Foreign Investment within the United States (CFIUS), a physique that didn’t attain a consensus and granted the final phrase on the operation to the president.

In that very same doc, the businesses take into account that Biden’s arguments, who assured that his determination protects “national security”, lack foundation, they guarantee that it was an motion to favor their very own political pursuits and so they level out that they are going to take “all “appropriate measures” to protect their rights, suggesting that a lawsuit would be filed.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry confirmed this Saturday that the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, will visit Tokyo between Monday and Tuesday and there he will meet with his counterpart, Takeshi Iwaya. This visit, which was already planned and is part of a tour that includes Korea, comes at a time when the entire procedure and Biden’s final decision on the merger have strained relations between Washington and Tokyo.

Biden’s decision represents a turn to protectionism that moves away from the policy of openness on investments that has dominated US regulatory practice for decades and that with the arrival to the presidency in 2017 of Donald Trump – who had already assured that he would block the merger once he returned to power on January 20—began to change.

The formal blocking of the operation, valued at around $14 billion, frustrates the merger of the world’s fourth largest steelmaker by production volume, Nippon Steel, with the twenty-fourth, US Steel, which was to create a colossus capable of competing with others. such as ArcelorMittal or the Chinese giants led by Baowu Steel.

Front rejection

“It is my solemn responsibility as President to ensure that, now and in the future, America has a strong, domestically owned and operated steel industry that can continue to advance our national sources of strength at home and abroad; and it is a fulfillment of that responsibility to block foreign ownership of this vital American company,” Biden said in the statement released by the White House explaining his decision.

US Steel is an iconic company founded in 1901 by JP Morgan and Andrew Carnegie. It is a giant in decline that had more than 300,000 employees in the middle of the last century, but today it has around 20,000. It is headquartered in Pittsburgh, the industrial capital of Pennsylvania, a very politically important state. The operation soon found rejection not only from Biden, but also from the two main candidates for the elections on November 5, Democrat Kamala Harris, and the president-elect, Donald Trump, who were trying to court the unionized voters of said State. The Republican had promised to veto the operation upon coming to power, but Biden has beaten him to it.

Biden argues in his assertion that, “for too long, American steel companies have faced unfair trade practices, as foreign companies have sold steel at artificially low prices in global markets, resulting in the loss of jobs. jobs and the closure of factories in the United States.” The president remembers that he tripled tariffs on metal imports from China and assures that the US metal trade is the strongest lately.