by Christen Smith
(The Center Square) – Gov. Josh Shapiro faces a new challenge after the White House blocked U.S. Steel’s overseas acquisition.
Join the lawsuit the company filed alongside its would-be Japanese-owned buyer, Nippon Steel, and make sure Pennsylvania doesn’t lose more jobs to “friggin’ Ohio.”
Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward threw down the gauntlet Monday during the Marty Griffin show on KDKA radio (begins at 53:20), referencing the governor’s infamous quote during his budget address in February 2024: build an economy that puts the Buckeye State’s to shame.
According to Ward, this could happen because the collapse of the deal on Friday leaves the backdoor open for domestic buyers – namely Ohio-based Cleveland-Cliffs, which offered to acquire U.S. Steel in July 2023 for less than half of the $14.9 billion Nippon bid.
In a statement issued after President Joe Biden’s decision to block the merger, Shapiro said U.S. Steel should stop “threatening” jobs in southwestern Pennsylvania and start entertaining offers from stateside buyers. He didn’t mention Cleveland-Cliffs by name and The Center Square was unable to reach his office for a response to Ward’s challenge.
In two lawsuits filed Monday, the companies say corruption from the United Steel Workers union exerted pressure on the president and the federal regulatory process to stop the sale. Why? To eliminate competition and steer the company’s sale to Cleveland-Cliffs instead.
“I’m not saying Cleveland-Cliffs is a bad company, but they can’t afford to invest in U.S. Steel like Nippon can invest in U.S. Steel to make it better here,” Ward said. “They can easily move this stuff across the border.”
The chamber’s top-ranking Republican, whose district envelops U.S. Steel’s Mon Valley Works, pointed to FirstEnergy’s acquisition of West Penn Power. The energy conglomerate consolidated operations among its portfolio of Pennsylvania power companies and moved about half of West Penn Power’s jobs to Ohio, Ward said.
“The governor keeps saying we don’t want to lose to Ohio,” she said. “Well, we’re going to lose to Ohio.”
The comments come after Biden officially blocked the Nippon sale, saying that the merger could jeopardize national security and lead to widespread layoffs.
At the heart of the concern is China’s unfair trade practices, which involve flooding the market with inferior and artificially low-priced products. These products force domestic-based steel producers to shutter and ratchet up the nation’s reliance on foreign materials, critics say.
Ward dismissed the concerns as unfounded, noting that the U.S. provides ground-to-air missiles to Japan without issue.
As part of the yearlong negotiations between the federal government, regulators, the United Steel Workers union and both companies, Nippon said it would back away from Chinese dealings, secure jobs, modernize manufacturing plants to better meet climate action goals and keep natural-born citizens on the U.S. Steel board.
The union was never swayed despite growing concerns among more than 1,000 Pittsburgh-based workers who supported the sale as crucial to preserving the region’s economic and cultural significance.
Local officials likewise supported the deal. Without it, U.S. Steel said it may relocate its headquarters out of Pittsburgh. The union said layoffs would come either way after Nippon reconsolidated its operations in Arkansas, where no collective bargaining exists.
Meanwhile, Ward grew more vocally frustrated with Shapiro’s public silence on the matter. In November, she urged the governor to go on the record about where he stands on the deal. A Shapiro spokesman later dismissed the request as petty and said the governor had been working behind the scenes since December 2023 to protect jobs, secure investments and stand up for workers.
“It didn’t work,” Ward said. “It clearly failed if that’s what he was doing. So, let’s go governor, let’s use your considerable power and position to help this and keep these jobs in southwestern Pennsylvania.”
Loading ...
4 Responses
So, Senator Ward would like to sell them to a foreign bidder and protect executive pay? Interesting.
“The chamber’s top-ranking Republican, whose district envelops U.S. Steel’s Mon Valley Works.”
Kim Ward’s 39th Senatorial district comes nowhere near the Mon Valley Works. She’s from MAGA rich Westmoreland County and she could care less about the democratic stronghold of the people who live and work there. She’s just grandstanding to goad Shapiro, as all Republicans do in Pennsylvania.
100% agree!
Cleveland Cliffs has consistently invested $500 million dollars to $700 million dollars each year in its domestic steel facilities for years… That’s two or three years of what Nippon Steel promised. And those promises are worth nothing unless they are in a written contract!
Nippon Steel has said that they want to control the United States steel market and has a record of dumping excess steel here below cost of production from themselves in Japan and their other steel interests in China, India, Vietnam, Brazil, etc. In fact they have several steel dumping cases currently pending.
In addition Nippon Steel has stated a desire to move steel production to non-union steel mills in Arkansas and Alabama… When the president of the United Steelworkers Dave McCall confronted Nippon Steel about this plan the response was that they wish they had not said that! And they refused to answer a question about whether they planned to expand the Big River plant Phase 3 in Arkansas.
Given Nippon Steel’s track record and desire to import low cost steel in to the United States which has cost U.S. steel jobs since the 1970s, why would Nippon Steel offer $14.9 billion dollars for a company worth $7.4 billion dollars? If Nippon Steel would close steel plants in Pennsylvania and Indiana and transfer production to non-union mills it would reduce the steel supply in the United States and thus require increased importation of steel – something in the interests of Nippon Steel and not in the interests of existing steel workers!
United States Steel currently has about $4 billion dollars in liquidity. Why doesn’t United States Steel make modernization investments in its own facilities? It could easily double what Nippon Steel has verbally promised and still have over $1 billion dollars in liquidity…
Don’t kid yourself, this deal was not about saving steel jobs it was about enrichment of the management of United States Steel and their stockholders and Nippon Steel’s increased influence in our domestic steel market.
Nippon Steel has played a role in the development of excess steel production over what is needed in Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam, Brazil, etc. That is not what our domestic steel industry has done in the United States. China buikt out six times its steel production capacity over domestic requirements alone…
We need to protect our domestic steel industry by both stopping the dumping of low cost steel and modernization of our steel facilities to maintain a competitive and profitability into the future.