The Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel will sue the United States Government after President Joe Biden’s decision to block the operation for it to acquire US Steel, as sources close to the matter reported to the Japanese news agency Kyodo this Saturday.
The statement comes hours after both steel companies published a joint statement in which they condemned Biden’s decision and considered that the procedure was illegal for not complying with the regulations governing the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a body that did not reach a consensus and granted the last word on the operation to the president.
In that same writing, the companies consider that Biden’s arguments, who assured that his decision protects “national security”, lack basis, they point out that it was an action to favor their own political interests and point out that they will take “all “appropriate measures” to protect their rights, suggesting that a lawsuit would be filed.
The Japanese Foreign Ministry confirmed this Saturday that the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, will visit Tokyo between Monday and Tuesday and there he will meet with his counterpart, Takeshi Iwaya.
This visit, which was already planned and is part of a tour that includes Korea, comes at a time when the entire procedure and Biden’s final decision on the merger have strained relations between Washington and Tokyo.
A turn to protectionism in the US
Biden’s decision represents a turn to protectionism that moves away from the investment opening policy that has dominated US regulatory practice for decades and that with the arrival to the presidency in 2017 of Donald Trump – who had already assured that he would block the merger once he returned to power on January 20 – began to change.
The formal blocking of the operation, valued at about 14 billion dollars, frustrates the merger of the fourth largest steel company in the world by production volume, Nippon Steel, with the twenty-fourth, US Steel, which was going to create a colossus capable of competing with others. such as ArcelorMittal or the Chinese giants led by Baowu Steel.
#Japanese #steelmaker #Nippon #Steel #sue #blocking #multibillion #dollar #merger #Steel
