Ramstad: Iron Range watches closely as U.S. Steel deal runs into economic nationalism

Nippon Steel ought to be able to buy U.S. Steel.

The Japanese company’s $14.9 billion deal for U.S. Steel is caught up in election-year politics and doesn’t look likely to close. Against the backdrop of the changing global steel industry, however, it would be a good deal for U.S. Steel’s workers, especially those in Minnesota mines that produce so much of the iron ore used in American steel production.

Shareholders and customers including U.S. automakers would also stand to benefit, as would people like you and me, who buy cars, trucks and other end products.

U.S. Steel’s union workers don’t see it that way, however. The United Steelworkers union opposed Nippon Steel’s buyout, instead endorsing a sale of the company to competitor Cleveland Cliffs, which publicly offered to buy U.S. Steel last year. If a deal were done with Cleveland Cliffs, the combined company could become the sole mining power in Minnesota’s Iron Range.

U.S. Steel and Cleveland Cliffs both invoked economic nationalism in their cause. For instance, in a statement last month, Cleveland Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves said, “We commend President Biden and the U.S. government for its reported decision to block foreign ownership of U.S. Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel. The American steel industry plays a crucial role in safeguarding our national security.”

With U.S. Steel based in Pittsburgh and running giant steel mills in that swing state, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump all came out against the deal shortly after it was announced last winter. Nippon is still trying to get it done, hoping for approval from a federal panel that looks at takeovers of U.S. companies from a national security perspective. Even if that approval comes, Biden or his successor is likely to stop the deal.

“No politician would be dumb enough to sign off on this deal when the union is against it,” said Philip Gibbs, steel industry analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets in Cleveland. “It’s suicide. They’re not going to do it, and I’m not of the opinion they’re going to magically change their mind after the election.”

A larger tension is playing out, with the desire for U.S. economic sovereignty crashing against the reality that U.S. Steel may close some plants and leave Pittsburgh altogether without a deal. People don’t want to see borders erased by capitalism, but demographic decline and the industrial challenge of standing up to China are forcing unwelcome changes and new ways of thinking.

“We could really look at our policy toward foreign investments and make clear who are welcome, who are not, and set up a roadmap for future foreign investments,” said Yuka Hayashi, senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington think tank that views foreign investment as a net positive for American workers. “But then we have this Nippon Steel deal that really undermines such efforts.”

She added, “In order to confront China, we have to work more closely with allies, countries like Japan and those in Europe. But on the other hand, we have this domestic economic nationalism and it’s threatening to shut out everyone, not just the Chinese.”

The economic nationalism argument against the Nippon-U.S. Steel deal is strange on its face. Japanese companies have bought, owned and sold many U.S. companies over the last 40 years, including banks, movie studios and even chipmakers.

The largest pharmaceutical company in the Twin Cities was bought several years ago by a Japanese firm, which operated it with no major changes or disruptions until selling it to a Taiwanese firm earlier this year. And the biggest purchase by Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp over the last two decades was the U.S. operations of a Japanese bank.

Take politics away and people might see this deal as simply two companies trying to survive as they face competitors in China, which makes about as much steel as companies in the other 71 steel-making countries combined.

Japan is one of the first advanced economies to experience population decline. Its businesses have to turn outward for growth, innovation and the best return on capital. Having built itself into a global power by exporting cars, electronics and other goods, Japan today makes its money by investing abroad.

This may eventually happen in the United States, which is experiencing some of the slowest population growth in its history. Minnesota is growing more slowly than the nation as a whole.

The fate of the Nippon-U.S. Steel deal will make a difference on the Iron Range if the acquisition falters and U.S. Steel winds up selling to Cleveland Cliffs, giving it control of nearly all mining in northern Minnesota. Gibbs, the analyst at KeyBanc, said he doesn’t think that will happen.

“There’s going to have to be some carve-outs,” he said, referring to antitrust measures regulators might impose to preserve competition. “The government, to some, may seem irrational at the moment in their thought process. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to let monopolistic behavior take place.”