President Donald Trump said on Friday that he doubles the 50%steel rate rate, a spectacular increase that could further increase the prices of a metal used to make housing, cars and other goods.
Trump spoke to Us Steel's my Valley Works – Irvin factory in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh to discuss the investments of Japan in Japan.
The price of steel products has increased by around 16% since Trump became president, according to the government's price index.
Trump said US Steel will remain an American company as part of a Japan Japanese agreement to invest in the emblematic of the American Diri. Few details on the agreement have been made public.
“We are here today to celebrate a successful agreement that will guarantee that this American sexual company remains an American company,” said Trump by opening an event in one of US Steel's warehouses near Pittsburgh. “You will remain an American business, you know, right?”
Trump said the doubling of imported steel prices “will still secure the steel industry in the United States”, but that a so spectacular increase could increase even higher prices.
Employees, Trump supporters, local officials and others filled one of the massive warehouses on the grounds of the Irvin finishing plant to hear Trump. Giant American flags were suspended from the ceiling and a sign said “the golden age”. Steel workers in helmets and orange work clothes have been crushed, and part of the warehouse cement floor was filled with huge reels rolled with shiny steel sheets products and used for household appliances, doors and other applications.
Although Trump initially promised to block the Japanese attempt at childbirth from buying US Steel, based in Pittsburgh, he changed CAP andAnnounced an agreement last weekFor what he described as a “partial property” by Japanese. It is not clear, however, if the agreement that his administration helped the broker were finalized or how the property would be structured.
Trump stressed that the agreement would maintain American control of the legendary company, which is considered a political symbol and an important question for the country's supply chain, industries such as automotive manufacturing and national security.
Trump, who is eager to conclude agreements and announce new investments in the United States since the White House retirement, also tries to satisfy voters, including the blue passes, who elected him as he called to protect American manufacturing.
Us Steel has not publicly communicated any details of an alternative agreement to investors. Nippon Steel published a declaration approving the proposed “partnership” but did not disclose the terms of the arrangement either.
States and federal legislators who have been informed of the question describe an agreement in which Japanese will buy American steel and spend billions for American steel facilities in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas and Minnesota. The company would be supervised by an executive suite and a council composed mainly of Americans and protected by the right of veto of the American government in the form of a “part of gold”.
In the absence of clear details or affirmation of the companies involved, the United Steelworkers Union, which has long opposed the agreement, wondered this week if the new arrangement brought “any significant change” compared to the initial proposal.
“Japanese has kept consistently that it would only invest in US Steel's facilities if it owned the company,” the union said in a statement. “We have not seen anything in the reports in the past few days, suggesting that Nippon has returned from this position.”
The workers of unionized steel said that there was a shared opinion in the ranks against the acquisition of Japanese Steel, but that the feeling has changed over time because they have become more convinced that Us Steel would ultimately close its Pittsburgh factories.
Clifford Hammonds, an online feeder from the factory where Trump spoke, said at least that the agreement will help modernize the aging plant and increase production.
“He puts money back in the plant to help rebuild it, because this plant is old, it collapses. We do not really produce as much as we should be because, as I said, this place is old. It collapses. We need a certain type of investment to repair the machines we work,” said Hammonds.
Other US Steel Union members said that the recruitment of new employees has been difficult due to the uncertainty about the Japanese Steel agreement and the future of factories.
Regardless of the conditions, the question spent an importance for Trump, who declared last year that he would block the agreement and foreign property of US Steel, as was former president Joe Biden.
Trump promised during the campaign to revitalize American manufacturing a priority of his second mandate in power. And the fate of the US Steel, formerly the largest company in the world, could become a political responsibility in the mid-term elections of its republican party in the Swing State of Pennsylvania and other battlefield states depending on industrial manufacturing.
Trump said on Sunday that he would not approve of the agreement if Us Steel did not remain under American control and said he would keep his headquarters in Pittsburgh.
In an interview on Fox News Channel on Wednesday, the Republican representative of Pennsylvania, Dan Meuser, described the arrangement of “strictly an investment, a strategic partnership where he is belonging to the United States, an American race and remains in America”.
However, Meuser said that he had not seen the agreement and that “it is always structured”.
Pennsylvania Republican senator, David McCormick, described the “large” plan for the national steel industry, Pennsylvania, national security and US Steel employees. He first opposed the first Japanese Steel proposal to buy American steel for $ 14.9 billion after his announcement at the end of 2023.
In recent days, Trump and other US officials have started to boast the new commitment of Japanese Steel to invest $ 14 billion in addition to its offer of $ 14.9 billion, including the construction of a new electric furniture mill somewhere in the United States
The other Pennsylvania senator, Democrat John Fetterman – who lives in front of the US steel high stove – has not explicitly approved the new proposal. But he said he had helped to blur the original offer of Nippon Steel until “Japanese coughs an additional $ 14 billion”.
Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat considered a potential presidential candidate, had publicly avoided an agreement, but said this week that he was “prudently optimistic” on this subject.
Chris Kelly, the mayor of West Mifflin, in Pennsylvania, where Irvin's finish factory is located, said that he was “ecstatic” on the agreement, despite the lack of details. He said it would save thousands of jobs for his community.
This story was initially presented on Fortune.com
