Editorial Board
US Will Pay a Price for Blocking Nippon Steel Deal
Unfairly tarnishing an ally on specious national-security grounds will undermine efforts to counter China.
Buy American.
Photographer: Justin Merriman/Bloomberg
To virtually no one’s surprise, President Joe Biden appears set to block the $14.1 billion sale of United States Steel Corp. to Japan’s Nippon Steel Corp. on national-security grounds. Doing so will undermine US security far more than the proposed takeover would.
The White House says Biden is still awaiting a recommendation from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, the interagency body tasked with vetting such deals for national-security and antitrust issues. Yet it’s clear the takeover would strengthen rather than weaken a vital sector.