I read an article on this that this sale is actually a great thing for America in general. The sale price to the Japanese company was much higher that what the US competitor would have offered, so a win for shareholders. If the US buyer would have won there would have been massive layoffs to account for redundancies in the consolidated company, so the sale to the Japanese company is a win for workers. Japan is one of America’s most steadfast allies, so not much national security risk.
The overall deal is pretty good, but the Boogeyman of foreign ownership is just too politically toxic. Just example 1,000 of how nuance is completely lost on both the public and the politicians beholden to the public.
Is there really anything a president could do to stop it? It’s not a federally-owned company.
Only on “day one”
I don’t know, but I don’t think its as straightforward as blocking a merger on antitrust grounds. Maybe there is a national security angle, perhaps the national defense authorization act that gets trotted out for like everything these days. After all steal is important in wartime (but it’s not like factories are being moved to Japan). But even then you’d have to give the middle finger to an important ally, tell shareholders their not going to get a big windfall from the sale, and then sit back and wait for the inevitable consolidation layoffs to roll in during the middle of an election. Not great options. Or you could try to educate the American public that the sale is actually overall a good thing, but good luck with that, especially with shameless Republicans, especially trump, howling about globalism and whatnot. Even Dems who understand this, like Sherrod Brown, are agitating against it cause the politics are rotten. If the public was literate and capable of nuance, this would be a lot easier, but that ship sailed at least 40 years ago.
It can be stopped under foreign investment regulations.
It’ll never happen. Steel is part of national security.
They only make construction grade steel for buildings.
The result of any blocked takeover would be job losses and possibly bankruptcy.
The US government has given itself far reaching powers over such matters. International investments of strategic importance must go through a government committee (CFIUS), which decides for itself what “strategic importance” means. The government can also compel individuals, e.g. it has banned US citizens outside the US from working for Chinese semiconductor firms. A lot of this is done at the executive level, with no legislative oversight and no avenue for recourse by affected parties.
The idea of the US government staying in its lane, away from private sector affairs, is pretty much dead and buried at this point.
It’ll never happen. Steel is part of national security. We make ships and tanks from that stuff. Trump wants to take credit for something that’s going to happen anyway.
BAE makes top secret stuff for the government and is British owned. It’s not unheard of.
Ah yes, more from the “small government” party that vows to not interfere with private business.
It’s important to report stuff like this but if he’s re-elected it’s pretty far down my list of worries
