Nippon looks for way forward with Mon Valley leaders after Biden rejects U.S. Steel merger

Nippon meets with Mon Valley leaders after Biden rejects U.S. Steel merger

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel filed lawsuits challenging President Biden's decision to block their proposed merger. Now Nippon's vice chairman is sitting down with multiple mayors in the Mon Valley, trying to determine what to do next.

The mayor says the future of steelmaking in the Mon Valley hangs in the balance, and they say they'll take their case all the way to President-elect Donald Trump. 

Meeting with Takahiro Mori, the soft-spoken vice chairman of Nippon, the mayors of the Mon Valley say the future of steelmaking is at stake, knowing U.S Steel has warned that if the deal doesn't go through, it could begin transferring operations down south and move its headquarters out of Downtown Pittsburgh.

"I saw it before when I worked in Homestead, and I was there when the last man walked out of the mill, and it was devastating," West Mifflin Mayor Chris Kelly said. 

"I need the tax dollars in Clairton," said Clairton Mayor Rich Lattanzi. "My people need the jobs. It got a trickle-down effect, so we need to keep the U.S. Steel and Nippon merger here. If not, the Mon Valley is not going to survive." 

Both Nippon and U.S. Steel filed a lawsuit with the federal court of appeals in Washington, D.C., challenging President Biden's authority to reject the deal, saying the president manipulated the review process to keep a promise to United Steelworkers President David McCall.

McCall has been against the deal from the start despite broad support from the rank-and-file steelworkers. Both Biden and McCall cited national security as a reason for rejecting the deal.

"We have no doubt that the president's decision was the right one for our members and our national security," McCall said. 

 But in a statement both U.S. Steel and Nippon called it political, saying, "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."

The deal was reviewed by a national security panel but the steelmakers called it "a process that was designed to reach a predetermined result: supporting President Biden's political decision." 

But Takahiro Mori says, "I think the facts and the law is on our side, so I think we prevail this litigation." 

Kelly says the mayors will be requesting a meeting with President-elect Donald Trump to try to convince him to drop his opposition to the deal. 

"Asking to sit down and meet with us and spell out what we know as elected officials," Kelly said. 

And so Nippon is pursuing two paths: one through the court and the other through the new administration. The mayors believe if they don't succeed, Pittsburgh's steelmaking legacy will die.  

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