©Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Nippon Steel Corp. logos are displayed at the company’s headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, March 18, 2019. REUTERS/Yuka Obayashi/File Photo
TOKYO (Reuters) – Nippon Steel will move its U.S. headquarters to Pittsburgh, where takeover target U.S. Steel is based, if the deal goes through, an executive said, adding to the Japanese steelmaker’s commitments to ensure the transaction.
Nippon Steel’s proposed $15 billion takeover of US Steel has drawn sharp criticism in the United States, where President Joe Biden said last week that the asset should remain domestically owned while his opponent in the vote presidential election in November, Donald Trump, has promised to block the deal if he does so. re-elected.
The Japanese company, the fourth largest steel producer in the world, is in negotiations with the United Steelworkers (USW), a key union for Biden and Trump in the upcoming November elections and which had so far opposed the agreement.
“Not only are we keeping the Pittsburgh headquarters — something other bidders would not be able to do — but we are planning to move Nippon Steel’s current U.S. headquarters from Houston to Pittsburgh,” said Executive Vice President Takahiro Mori, principal negotiator of the Nippon Steel deal. , he was quoted as saying.
In comments made overnight in a U.S. Steel filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Mori said his company remained committed to the USW and offered a number of specific commitments on job security, investment and more.
Nippon Steel will honor all agreements currently in place between US Steel and USW and will not cut jobs, close facilities or move production overseas, Mori reiterated.
(This story has been corrected to set the name to Takahiro, not Tahahiro, in paragraph 4 and remove an extra word in paragraph 6)