U.S. Steel and Japan’s Nippon Steel sued the Biden administration on Monday over its decision to block the merger of the two companies.
The companies filed the lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, accusing President Joe Biden of blocking the deal for political reasons rather than true national security concerns.
Biden said last week that the move was due to “credible evidence” that the purchase could threaten national security. Nippon had offered to acquire the company for $14.9 billion. The lawsuit alleges that Biden blocked the acquisition as a favor to union workers, which Biden courted heavily during the past election cycle.
“President Biden’s Order is the culmination of a months-long campaign to subvert and exploit the United States’ national security apparatus for the purpose of keeping a promise made by the President and his advisors to the USW leadership,” spokespeople for the steel companies said Monday in a joint statement.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the White House for comment about the lawsuit.
The deal itself faced immediate blowback when it was announced in 2023, particularly in the Rust Belt, where U.S. Steel has been a fixture since its formation in 1901.
A government panel tasked with reviewing the deal couldn’t reach an ultimate decision on whether the deal should move forward, but Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States personnel said in a letter last month that the acquisition could raise national security concerns if it led to a decline in domestic steel production.
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Despite that, U.S. Steel, whose shareholders approved the deal in April 2024, has warned that it will be forced to downsize and cut jobs if the sale is called off. Plus, Japan is a major ally of the U.S., and Japanese leadership was pushing for Biden to approve the deal.
But even if Biden had not blocked the deal, President-elect Donald Trump, who also courted union workers in the election, said he intended to block the merger as well.