Steel and Metals

On 18 June 2025 Nippon Steel completed its purchase of United States Steel at $55 a share, about $14.1 billion of equity by Nikkei's account and about $14.9 billion on a headline basis that included debt. It had taken eighteen months and the reversal of a presidential order. U.S. Steel had opened a sale process in 2023 after rejecting a proposal from Cleveland-Cliffs, reported at $35 a share, half in stock; Nippon signed on 18 December 2023 at $55; the deal became an issue in the 2024 election; and on 3 January 2025, after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States could not agree, President Biden blocked it (reported). A renewed review under President Trump cleared it with a national security agreement and something new in American industrial history: a golden share held by the US government.

The golden share gives the government the right to appoint one independent director and vetoes over moving the headquarters, changing the company's name, idling or closing plants, cutting production, relocating jobs and some acquisitions (scope as reported). Nippon committed about $11 billion of new investment by 2028, and U.S. Steel kept its name and its Pittsburgh headquarters. Further commitments were reported: no closure, idling or sale of any production location before 18 June 2035, and of the Granite City works before 18 June 2027. Within months the pledges began to become projects: about $3.1 billion to upgrade the blast furnace at Gary Works in Indiana, a greenfield mill with two electric arc furnaces, about $4 billion and about 3 million tonnes a year, with a site decision targeted for the end of 2026 and none announced by early November, and, in October 2026, a hot-strip mill of about $3 billion at the Mon Valley works near Pittsburgh, raising capacity from about 2.2 million to about 3.5 million tonnes a year, with commercial operation due in the second half of 2029 (reported). Nippon raised its forecast of U.S. Steel's underlying profit for the fiscal year to March 2027 from ¥100 billion to at least ¥180 billion, citing a blast-furnace restart and a recovering US market.

The price Nippon paid for U.S. Steel was set by a market that tariffs had built. US hot-rolled coil (HRC), the benchmark flat product, traded at about $1,210–1,220 a short ton on 2 October 2026 (Kallanish), against about $825–865 in the same week a year earlier, and Nucor's published consumer spot price was $1,230 a short ton in its 5 October 2026 letter. Those prices were possible because Section 232 duties on imported steel had stood at 50% since 4 June 2025. What the golden share bought for the government was a say over the one decision that a steel company makes most often in a downturn: how much to produce, and where.