Fetterman joins GOP blasting ‘outrageous’ US Steel sale to Japanese company

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) joined Republicans in attacking the sale of U.S. Steel for $14.9 billion to Japan’s Nippon Steel, expressing that the acquisition has “dire implications for the industrial base” in the nations.

The deal was announced Monday, and Fetterman posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that it is “absolutely outrageous” the Pittsburgh-based firm agreed to sell in whole to a foreign company, adding the move was “wrong for workers and wrong for Pennsylvania.”

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“It’s absolutely outrageous that U.S. Steel has agreed to sell themselves to a foreign company. Steel is always about security — both our national security and the economic security of our steel communities,” Fetterman said. “I am committed to doing anything I can do, using my platform and my position, to block this foreign sale.”

Other state Democrats such as Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) and Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-PA) echoed disapproval of the move, defending Western Pennsylvania families who have built and worked for the firm for decades.

In a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday, Sens. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) said national security was not taken into consideration when the deal was entered.

“The transaction was not the product of careful deliberation over stakeholder interests, but rather the result of an auction to maximize shareholder return,” the letter states.

Japan will buy the 122-year-old company for $55 a share in cash, representing a 40% premium to the stock’s price on Friday. The deal exceeded an auction from Cleveland-Cliffs earlier this year — a $35-per-share, cash-and-stock bid for U.S. Steel.

“Democratic and Republican administrations have both acted decisively over the last forty years to bolster the industry. The endurance of President Trump’s Section 232 tariffs on steel imports demonstrates that the preservation of the domestic steel industry remains vital to our national security,” the GOP senators said.

Former President Donald Trump used Section 232 on national security grounds to impose tariffs of 25% on steel, which is now defended by President Joe Biden’s administration.

“Allowing foreign companies to buy out American companies and enjoy our trade protections subverts the very purpose for which those protections were put in place,” the letter reads.

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Vance, from Pennsylvania’s neighboring red state, vowed to “interrogate the long-term implications for the American people.”

U.S. Steel was once the dominant player in the industry but was surpassed by Nucor Corp as the largest steelmaker in the nation years ago.