December 21, 2023

President Joe Biden believes Japanese company Nippon Steel’s planned purchase of iconic American company U.S. Steel deserves “serious scrutiny” because of potential national security and supply chain concerns, a top White House official said Thursday.

Biden “has been clear that we welcome manufacturers across the world building their futures in America with American jobs and American workers,” White House National Economic Adviser Lael Brainard said in the administration’s most extensive comment yet on the proposed deal. “However, he also believes the purchase of this iconic American-owned company by a foreign entity — even one from a close ally — appears to deserve serious scrutiny in terms of its potential impact on national security and supply chain reliability.”

The carefully worded remark shows the high stakes for Biden if his administration, through the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, were to block the deal on national security grounds since that would send a negative signal to the rest of the world about the openness of the U.S. economy to foreign investment.

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