In the twilight days of 2023, one story that dominated news and generated considerable controversy nationwide was the acquisition of the storied U.S. Steel Corporation by Japan's Nippon Steel.
For roughly $14.1 billion, the Japanese corporate would get "a major role in U.S. steel making" and "access in the U.S. to specialized steel used in electric vehicle motors, along with steel used in appliances and construction materials," according to the Wall Street Journal. The purchase also includes the assumption of debt, for a total value of $14.9 billion.
Moreover, in an almost unprecedented corollary in the proposed agreement, U.S. Steel would retain its name, brand, and headquarters in Pittsburgh.
But controversy continues to rage over a Japanese corporation acquiring a 122-year old American business that was pivotal to U.S industrialization in the 20th Century.
President Joe Biden has called for scrutiny of the deal by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., a Treasury Department-based panel which reviews foreign investments and can advise a president to block a deal. The United Steel Workers union slammed Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel for not engaging with the union before the deal was announced.
Senators from states with a strong presence of steel, Democrat John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Republican J.D. Vance of Ohio, both vowed to block the foreign purchase.
In trying to determine whether the acquisition is good or bad, a few old hands at steel have asked: "What would Roger Blough have thought?"
Remote now, Blough (pronounced "Blew") was chair of U.S. Steel from 1955-69 and, at one point, the public face of the steel industry in a celebrated clash with the organized labor and President John F. Kennedy.
When Blough and the heads of the other major steel companies announced a 3.5 percent price hike on April 10, 1962, an angry Kennedy charged that they had they had violated a secret agreement in which he persuaded steel executives and United Steel Workers head David McDonald to produce a non-inflationary agreement with a ten-cent an hour wage increase for workers.
Blough insisted that the increase would not lead to inflation or an economic slowdown. Kennedy disagreed fiercely and unloaded about the U.S. Steel boss with his staff.
Having denounced Blough and other steel executives by name at a news conference, Kennedy directed Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to have the Justice Department investigate possible steel collusion.
After Inland, Kaiser, Bethlehem, and Armco announced they were lowering prices of steel, Blough sought the White House's view on a 50 percent rollback of their price hike. Kennedy demanded a full rollback and soon got it.
Kennedy's name-calling and pressuring of Blough made the U.S. Steel president a symbol of what conservatives considered the president's war on free enterprise and heavy-handed tactics. Businessman proudly wore buttons identifying themselves as members of the "S.O.B. Club" — meaning Kennedy considered them enemies — and Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., charged the president was "trying to socialize the business of the country."
Blough himself always dismissed the idea that raising steel prices caused inflation, famously declaring: "Steel prices cause inflation like wet sidewalks cause rain."
So what would Roger Blough (who died in 1985) have said about Nippon Steel acquiring his beloved U.S. Steel? We don't know, of course, but it seems his opinion would have been in line with that of former Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., a past-co-vice chair of the Senate Steel Caucus.
"This is a no-brainer," Toomey told us, "It's good for U.S. Steel, its stockholders, and its workers. USS has been struggling for decades. It will soon have a large, deep-pocketed parent whose financial incentives are to grow USS. No one has made even a plausible case for how this deal is not in America's best interest."
Toomey's words aren't that far removed from Blough's, who once said, "Competition is what provides the environment in which profits are created."
"Roger Blough did not want a political advantage from the steel business — as the Kennedys did — but an economic advantage," said historian Irwin Gellman, author of three acclaimed books on Richard Nixon, "And he would have understood that today the best means of making U.S. Steel more competitive would be to allow its sale to a Japanese company. He would have supported it — and he would have been amused by the whole controversy."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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