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**MAY 29, 2025**
On the Prospect website
Sunburnt [link removed]
How door-to-door
solar salespeople can scam homeowners, and what the government could do to stop it. BY EMMA JANSSEN
Fortunately, Trump Has Trouble Achieving His Goals [link removed]
A federal court has struck down most of his tariffs, mainly because he didn't follow readily available procedures to impose them. BY DAVID DAYEN
The Trump Justice Department Barges Into North Carolina Elections [link removed]
A Republican candidate failed to overturn a state supreme court election. But the federal government has picked up where that case left off. BY GABRIELLE GURLEY
The Real Original Sins [link removed]
What do Democrats need to do to win back voters' trust? BY STANLEY B.
GREENBERG
Kuttner on TAP
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**** Trump's Steel Deal
The sudden announcement allowing Nippon Steel to buy U.S. Steel is all rhetoric and no enforceable commitments.
Last week, President Trump abruptly reversed his own campaign commitment, and an earlier order by Joe Biden, to allow Japan's Nippon Steel to acquire the flagship domestic company U.S. Steel. The more one looks into the details of the proposed deal, the stranger it is.
The deal was announced on social media last week right after Trump met with Pennsylvania Sen. Dave McCormick, who is a big promoter of the idea. "This will be a planned partnership between United States Steel and Nippon Steel [link removed], which will create at least 70,000 jobs and add $14 Billion Dollars to the U.S. Economy," Mr. Trump wrote Friday on Truth Social.
Supposedly, Nippon
Steel will invest $14 billion in U.S. Steel. But somehow U.S. Steel will remain a domestic company, with an American CEO and a majority of American board members. Trump also spoke of a "Golden Share," which gives the U.S. Treasury a veto over key company decisions on national-security grounds.
The problem is that none of this is in writing. In classic Trump fashion, none of it was staffed out. No senior trade officials or cabinet members were involved in negotiating it. They learned of it on social media.
Trump and McCormick claim that this is an investment partnership, not a buyout. But right on the U.S. Steel website [link removed], the deal is described as a merger. Nor is it clear what Nippon has agreed to. There is nothing about the deal on Nippon's website
[link removed], other than a link to the U.S. Steel statement.
U.S. Steel management is a big promoter of selling itself to Nippon, at a negotiated price of $55 a share-well above its recent share price-because this will produce a windfall of $72 million to CEO Dave Burritt,who will get to retire with a golden parachute. The stock rose more than 20 percent last Friday after Trump's announcement.
For Trump, the Nippon "partnership" with U.S. Steel is the Schr??dinger'scat of trade deals. It's both a buyout and not a buyout.
[link removed]
U.S. Steel claims that all collective-bargaining agreements will be honored, but the Steelworkers were not consulted about the deal, have seen nothing in writing, and are extremely skeptical. The union position has been
that if U.S. Steel wants to sell itself, there are available domestic buyers.
Union president Dave McCall said in a public statement, "Our concern remains that Nippon, a foreign corporation with a long and proven track record of violating our trade laws, will further erode domestic steelmaking capacity and jeopardize thousands of good, union jobs."
Last night, McCall sent a letter to the union membership spelling out the concerns in more detail. He wrote, "Throughout recent months, as the public conversation has turned to Nippon 'investing' in U.S. Steel or 'partnering with' U.S. Steel, Nippon has maintained consistently that it would only invest in U.S. Steel's facilities if it owned the company outright. We've seen nothing in the reporting over the past few days suggesting that Nippon has walked back from this position."
I recently wrote a piece in this space contrasting the two flagship Rupert Murdoch media properties
[link removed].
**The Wall Street Journal** has been increasingly critical of Trump, while Fox News has been a pure propaganda organ. But on Trump's steel deal, even Fox has been devastatingly critical.
Fox's Laura Ingraham conducted this withering interview [link removed] with Pennsylvania Rep. Dan Meuser, another big fan of the deal. "If a Japanese company takes over a U.S. company, how does the U.S. have control?" she asked. Meuser responded with a lot of double-talk.
Ingraham smoked out the fact that nothing is in writing and that Nippon has a long record of breaking trade agreements. "Nippon is one of the most notorious trade cheats and so is Japan," she said.
"Have you actually seen the terms of the deal?" she demanded. "It's still being structured,"
Meuser sheepishly admitted. "It used to be that the U.S. acquired foreign companies," Ingraham concluded, shaking her head ...We gotta see the terms of the deal."
This hostile interview could have been on MSNBC. When Trump loses Fox, he's in big trouble.
Tomorrow, Trump will be in Pittsburgh to tout the deal. Don't expect details.
~ ROBERT KUTTNER
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