United Steelworkers president David McCall is pressing the Trump administration to kill Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel’s $15 billion merger, noting in a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that he remains “unalterably” opposed to the deal.
It’s an awkward position for McCall to be in, given that many of his local union leaders and members back the deal—and given his long history of attacking the man he must convince to nix it, President Donald Trump.
McCall, then the director of a local USW chapter, embraced Hillary Clinton in 2016, writing in a memo to other union leaders that their choice “is either Secretary Clinton or a bigoted and idiotic candidate that has taken every opportunity to insult race, color, creed, national origin, disabilities and veterans.”
He spoke at a Clinton rally in Ohio one month before the election, urging his “brothers and sisters from organized labor” to vote against Trump, who went on to win the state by 8 points.