President Joe Biden has voiced skepticism about the sale of a prominent US steel company to a Japanese buyer. The deal, valued at over $14 billion, could become a significant issue in the 2024 election.
White House national economic adviser Lael Brainard provided the administration’s most extensive comment on the matter, stating that the president is concerned about the acquisition of this iconic American-owned company by a foreign entity, even one from a close ally. The administration sees the potential impact on national security and the reliability of the supply chain as deserving serious scrutiny.
The statement comes after the White House spent several days declining to comment on Nippon Steel’s acquisition of U.S. steel, citing a potential government review.
While rank-and-file lawmakers on the right and left have sharply criticized the deal, Biden and other leaders in both parties have been considerably more restrained — a sign of the countervailing economic and political pressures involved. a prominent US steel
Potential 2024 presidential rival, former President Donald Trump, has remained silent despite his embrace of protectionist policies. So have Democratic and Republican congressional leaders.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told POLITICO he hadn’t reviewed the sale, while Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Speaker Mike Johnson and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries haven’t commented on the deal to date.
That caution underscores the conflicting politics at play in an election that is expected to hinge, in large part, on the candidates’ records protecting American industry and American workers. In the case of the U.S. Steel sale, those two goals may be at odds.
As Christine McDaniel, a senior research fellow at the libertarian, pro-free market Mercatus Institute, pointed out, Japanese investors are responding to the U.S. government’s massive investment in domestic manufacturing in recent years, via funding in the CHIPS Act and Inflation Reduction Act, Democrats’ marquee climate bill, among others.