In one of his boldest moves as outgoing president, Joe Biden defied recommendations from some of the Western world’s most influential institutions. Both the Atlantic Council—NATO’s think tank—and the Council on Foreign Relations urged Biden in late 2024 to approve Japanese steel giant Nippon Steel’s $15 billion bid to acquire US Steel. Yet Biden stood firm. He opposed the deal when it was first announced in December 2023, siding with the United Steelworkers Union, which strongly opposed it as well.
On Friday, Biden officially rejected Nippon’s bid, citing the Defense Production Act of 1950. This law ensures that America’s industrial base has access to critical materials required for national defense. While Washington isn’t preparing for war with Japan, nor is US Steel a major supplier to the Pentagon, the acquisition would have left the United States with just one American-held, integrated, blast-furnace steel mill—owned by Cleveland-Cliffs.
Today, most US raw steel production uses recycled materials melted in electric arc furnaces, sometimes known as mini-mills. US Steel operates such facilities in Alabama and Arkansas along with traditional blast-furnace mills using iron ore. Nippon’s purchase would have given the Japanese raw steel-making capabilities. They don’t have that here, and they want it.