President Trump announced on Friday what appeared to be a go-ahead for a long contemplated tie-up between U.S. Steel and its Japanese rival, Nippon Steel.
“This will be a planned partnership between United States Steel and Nippon Steel, which will create at least 70,000 jobs, and add $14 Billion Dollars to the U.S. Economy,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media. “The bulk of that Investment will occur in the next 14 months.”
No terms of the deal were included in Mr. Trump’s statement, nor was there an explanation for the number of new jobs he projected. U.S. Steel currently employs 22,000 people, about 14,000 of them in North America.
Nippon Steel had sought to acquire U.S. Steel for $14 billion, but the Biden administration formally blocked the deal in January on national security grounds. The potential deal, and the idea that a Japanese company would acquire a U.S. industrial giant, became an issue in last year’s presidential campaign and, at times, threatened to complicate U.S. trade relations with Japan.
Mr. Trump said in February that, while he opposed Nippon Steel’s outright acquisition of U.S. Steel, he found the prospect of an investment “very exciting.”
Mr. Trump had said last year that U.S. Steel needed to remain American owned and operated, and it was not immediately clear whether the arrangement announced Friday would maintain that pledge. His post seemed to suggest an investment by Nippon Steel rather than an outright acquisition, though the ownership structure of the deal was not clear.
Investors in U.S. Steel cheered the plan: Shares of the company jumped more than 21 percent on Friday after the news and closed at about $52. Nippon Steel had offered to buy U.S. Steel for $55 a share in cash in the proposal the Biden administration blocked.
A spokesperson for the White House declined to comment beyond Mr. Trump’s post.
A spokeswoman for Nippon Steel said the company “applauds President Trump for his bold action to approve our partnership with U.S. Steel.” She added that the “partnership” was “a game changer — for U.S. Steel and all of its stakeholders, including the American steel industry, and the broader American manufacturing base.”
A spokesman for U.S. Steel said: “U.S. Steel will remain American, and we will grow bigger and stronger through a partnership with Nippon Steel that brings massive investment, new technologies and thousands of jobs over the next four years.”
Nippon Steel has long maintained that it would be interested only in an acquisition that made U.S. Steel a wholly owned subsidiary. Nippon Steel has said that as part of the $14 billion investment it offered in December 2023, it would share steel-making technologies with U.S. Steel but only if it held a majority stake in the company.
Nippon Steel is taking the White House’s announcement as a positive sign, but details of a deal will have to be hammered out with U.S. officials. The company’s executives expect that the process could drag on, especially if Trump administration officials define a partnership as something different from an outright acquisition.
Mr. Trump made the announcement after a meeting with a delegation of leaders from Pennsylvania, including Senator Dave McCormick.
The United Steelworkers union has been adamantly opposed to a deal, arguing that American jobs would not be secure under Nippon Steel.
“We cannot speculate about the impact of today’s announcement without more information,” David McCall, the union president, said Friday. “Our concern remains that Nippon, a foreign corporation with a long and proven track record of violating our trade laws, will further erode domestic steel-making capacity and jeopardize thousands of good union jobs.”
Kim Ward, a high-ranking Republican state senator in Pennsylvania, applauded the news, posting on social media that the deal would “position the American steel industry to dominate the global marketplace through innovation.”
Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, said he was also supportive of the deal, which he had discussed with Mr. Trump in recent days.
Mr. Trump said in his post that U.S. Steel would keep its headquarters in Pittsburgh.
