US Steel will close its steel mills and possibly move its headquarters out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, if its planned sale to Japan’s Nippon Steel falls through, its chief executive said.
Nippon Steel has pledged to invest about $3 billion in its aging Pittsburgh plants, which is crucial to keeping the company competitive and jobs, the Financial Times reported.
“We’re not going to do it if the deal falls through,” Borrett said in an interview, according to the Financial Times. “I don’t have the money.”
Borrett’s bleak outlook for the aging steelmaker came after Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Monday that US Steel should remain locally owned and operated.
President Biden, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and several members of Congress have also lined up against the $14.1 billion deal, which the United Steelworkers also opposes.
As Biden did earlier this year, Vice President Kamala Harris did not explicitly say she would block the deal, but her comments were widely interpreted as another obstacle for U.S. Steel if she is elected president and she revises the regulatory framework for the deal.
