“I mean, if you go back to U.S. Steel from 90 years ago, it was incredible, it was the No. 1 company in the world for a long time,” Trump said April 9. (Justin Merriman/Bloomberg News)
United States Steel Corp. shares dropped after U.S. President Donald Trump on consecutive days reiterated his long-held position that he doesn’t want to see the steelmaker owned by a Japanese company.
Shares of U.S. Steel were down 5.6% the afternoon of April 10 following the president’s latest missive on Nippon Steel Corp.’s $14.1 billion takeover offer for U.S. Steel. Earlier, shares had fallen more than 10% in the biggest intraday decline since early February.
The stock immediately trimmed losses after Trump made initial cabinet comments on April 10 in the White House that said Nippon Steel is coming back as an investor, without clarifying what exactly that would look like. Trump reiterated his opposition to the sale of U.S. Steel and asked why Nippon Steel can’t build a new plant on its own — the latest in a dizzying series of signals over the fate of the companies’ tie-up.
“U.S. Steel is going to do very well now because of the tariffs,” Trump said. “I don’t know why they even need a deal.”
Trump’s words came a day after his April 9 comments in the Oval Office that U.S. Steel was “doing very well,” evidence that the company doesn’t need any investment right now. Trump also said he doesn’t want the company to be bought by “any other place” — apparently referring to other foreign buyers.
Investors in the past week had boosted U.S. Steel shares to the highest level since March 2024 on hopes that Trump would reverse a decision by his predecessor to block Nippon Steel’s bid to buy the U.S. company. Trump ordered another national security review of the proposed deal on April 7, with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States told to submit its report within 45 days.
It’s the latest twist in a more-than year-and-a-half saga in which the fate of U.S. Steel’s future has been left in the lurch. U.S. investors and policymakers viewed Nippon Steel’s offer as a home run, not thinking twice that one of America’s closest allies in the post-war era would trigger national security concerns.
But Trump and former President Joe Biden, both part of a generation that grew up knowing U.S. Steel as one of the most iconic U.S. companies that exemplified America’s 20th century economic power, never indicated they were comfortable with Nippon Steel owning the steelmaker. Despite Trump’s latest comments, the decision still may ultimately come down to whether the Cfius panel again finds national security concerns.
“I mean, if you go back to U.S. Steel from 90 years ago, it was incredible, it was the No. 1 company in the world for a long time,” Trump said April 9. “That’s why we don’t want to see it go to Japan, and we love Japan, but U.S. Steel is a very special company.”
