The Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Yoji Muto, today considered US President Joe Biden’s decision to block the acquisition of North American US Steel by Japanese Nippon Steel to be incomprehensible.
“It is incomprehensible and regrettable that the Biden Government took a decision of this type, citing national security concerns”, declared Yoji Muto in a statement sent to the France-Presse news agency.
Joe Biden announced on Friday that he will block the purchase of US Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel for national security reasons and to ensure that “the United States has a strong domestic steel industry.”
Last month, a federal agency left the decision on the merger between US Steel and Nippon Steel in Biden’s hands and the US President decided to block it, which his successor, Donald Trump, who takes office on 20 September January, I had already promised to do.
“This acquisition would have placed one of America’s largest steel producers under foreign control and would have created risks to our national security and our essential supply chains,” Biden said in a statement.
“US Steel will continue to be a proudly American company, American-owned and American-operated,” he noted.
The formal blocking of the steel merger will frustrate a 14,000 million dollar (13,560 million euros) operation that would create an industrial giant capable of competing with others such as ArcelorMittal or the Chinese groups led by Baowu Steel.
The decision was announced after in December the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a federal agency chaired by the Treasury Department, referred the issue to Biden.
The American metalworkers union had voiced strong opposition to the merger, while Nippon Steel saw it as a lifeline for a struggling industrial sector.
The United States is the world’s largest importer of steel, a sector dominated by China.
Source: www.jornaldenegocios.pt
