President Joe Biden has blocked Japanese steel giant Nippon Steel’s acquisition of U.S. Steel, citing national-security risks. The trouble is, these risks were fabricated to benefit Cleveland-Cliffs, an American steelmaker that bid unsuccessfully to acquire the once-great, now-flailing, U.S. Steel. Biden’s theories rested on the dubious assumption that Nippon would spend $15 billion to acquire U.S. Steel (plus billions more on facility improvements) only to shutter its new properties and switch to importing steel from its plants located in foreign countries, thereby shrinking America’s domestic capacity for steel production. Doing so would prove to be a senseless act of economic self-harm. Neither the numbers nor the logic add up — which is, of course, why Nippon intends nothing of the kind.
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