Trump Makes the Deal of a Lifetime for US Steel

WEST MIFFLIN, Pennsylvania—Local steelworkers, community leaders, and economic experts said President Donald Trump’s announcement Friday that a deal was struck between U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel will go down in American history as the most enduring economic “big, beautiful deal” the 47th president has made.

It is a deal robustly supported by the rank-and-file steelworkers from the three plants that make up the Mon Valley Works. The deal is believed to reverse the decline of steel that began under former President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s.

“I am proud to announce that, after much consideration and negotiation, U.S. Steel will REMAIN in America and keep its headquarters in the Great City of Pittsburgh,” said Trump, who had been engaged in intense negotiations over a sale between the iconic American company and Nippon Steel.

“This will be a planned partnership between United States Steel and Nippon Steel … and the largest investment in the history of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” he said.

“I applaud President Trump, Secretary [Scott] Bessent, and other senior administration officials for achieving this huge victory for America and the U.S. Steel Corporation,” said Sen. David McCormick, R-Pa., who, along with other members of the Pennsylvania delegation, was working with Trump, community stakeholders, and the union members of USW Local 2227.

USW Local 2227 President Jack Maskil, Vice President Jason Zugai, and Safety Chairman Gary Picketts, who have all clocked into their jobs at the Irvin Works mill for decades, said they were thrilled and relieved the deal would save not just their jobs but the jobs of men and women in the surrounding communities who will now be able to work here for generations.

“We had faith in the president from the very beginning,” Zugai said from the West Mifflin plant. “I never doubted he would come through for us.”

“This is huge for western Pennsylvania workers, families, communities, and, of course, the U.S. Steel family,” said plant manager Don German, who has worked side by side with the local union, the community, and upper management to get the word out that they supported it wholeheartedly.

“I’m so happy for those employees, both management and union, that have just started their careers at U.S. Steel. This is a huge weight lifted and a huge opportunity to keep steel in the Steel City,” German said.

A person familiar with the deal said the benefits include $14 billion in capital investment projects at U.S. Steel, with approximately $11 billion of the $14 billion invested by 2028. These are investments that U.S. Steel could not make as a stand-alone company.

Those new capital investments include $2.2 billion to revitalize the only remaining blast furnace mill in Pittsburgh, $200 million for a new research and development center in Pennsylvania to bring world-leading technology to U.S. Steel, $1 billion invested by 2028 in a new Greenfield steel mill, and $3.1 billion in Indiana to transform the historic Gary Works mill.

There will also be a $3 billion investment in the Arkansas plant, including $1.8 billion for advanced electrical steel production for power grid transformers, $800 million in Minnesota to enhance iron ore mining, and $500 million in Alabama for tubular upgrades to supply American oil and gas dominance.

The investments and technology transfer will protect and create 100,000 jobs in Pennsylvania, according to an independent analysis by Parker Strategy Group. The analysis estimated that the investment would protect 11,400 jobs and create and support 14,000 new jobs, including over 10,200 in construction.

The deal preserves U.S. Steel’s headquarters in the iconic Pittsburgh skyscraper, the tallest building in Appalachia, and the company will maintain its production locations and capacity in the United States. As part of the agreement, American jobs are protected and cannot be offshored.

The deal also guarantees that the majority of U.S. Steel’s board must be U.S. citizens, and key management, including the CEO, will also all be U.S. citizens. The deal outlines that U.S. Steel’s trade actions will be determined solely by U.S. citizens, with oversight from the U.S. government, and free from any interference.

As outlined, the deal will improve domestic supply chains in the trucking and rail industries, increase the production of American automobiles, and boost energy production in the natural gas and coal industries, as well as boost the building of pipelines and power grid transformers.

The deal maintains U.S. Steel’s stature as an American icon, as well as stabilizes economic development in the Mon Valley, where three of the plants—the Edgar Thomson plant in Braddock, the Clairton Mill Works in Clairton, and the Irvin Works in West Mifflin—are located.

Hudson Institute fellow Paul Sracic said that while Trump is considered headstrong by his critics, this deal shows Trump was willing to look past his own preconceived ideas of what U.S. Steel should look like and toward the reality that billions of dollars of investment in well-paying steel jobs in the Rust Belt was too much to pass up.

“Instead of just killing the deal, he used his opposition as leverage to get even more investment dollars than Nippon Steel had originally offered,” Sracic said.

“In every way now, Trump can take credit for this investment. It was his application of steel tariffs during his first term which led Nippon Steel to seek out the purchase in the first place,” Sracic continued.

It’s important to realize that Nippon Steel wants U.S. Steel’s production to allow it to compete better with Chinese steelmakers, such as the state-owned Baowu Steel, which has been accused of stealing technology from the U.S.

“Through his application of tariffs, Trump has managed to secure U.S. jobs and helped to directly take on China,” Sracic said.

The money Nippon Steel will bring to U.S. Steel is crucial to its survival. U.S. Steel operates integrated blast furnace plants in places like Braddock. They are more expensive to operate than newer, nonunionized electric arc furnace mills, located mainly in the South, and need to be relined every decade, a very costly endeavor. U.S. Steel does not have the resources to maintain these facilities on its own.

Sracic noted that just a few years ago, U.S. Steel announced it was canceling its plans to invest $1 billion in Mon Valley Works, the umbrella name for all three plants in Braddock, West Mifflin, and Clairton.

Other domestic steel companies, such as Cleveland-Cliffs, which once was a rival bidder for U.S. Steel, are closing down plants and laying off workers. Without new investment, workers at U.S. Steel’s old blast furnace plants were looking at a repeat of the 1980s, with plant closures, massive layoffs, and decimated communities.

“Trump can now rightly claim credit for saving these communities and the jobs of the workers who, unlike their union leadership, have served as one of his most loyal sources of support since he first ran for president in 2016. The future is now bright in Pennsylvania,” he said of the plants here and in Bucks County.

Former President Joe Biden, who stubbornly refused to consider the deal, created a self-inflicted massive political wound from his failure to move on a deal, a decision that frustrated many members of his inner circle in the White House.

Steelworkers here said they believed Trump could get a better deal when he said he was against the sale during last year’s presidential election. That is why when Trump came to Pittsburgh on election eve, they stood behind him at the rally in the city to voice their support.

Because of Trump’s dealmaking prowess, this partnership will solidify the working class in the Republican Party for generations.

“We’ve seen a massive realignment in U.S. politics, with union workers who used to be loyal to the Democratic Party switching in droves to the GOP,” Sracic said, noting the contrast between what Trump has done in saving places like the U.S. Steel Mon Valley Works and Carter’s refusal in the 1970s to meet with workers from Youngstown, Ohio, when those plants were shut down.

“Under Trump, this is a very new Republican Party. Just as Roosevelt earned the trust of working-class voters in the 1930s and made them Democrats for the next 60 years, Trump is locking in these voters for the next generation,” he said.

McCormick said the deal is an example of “America First” foreign direct investment because of the binding commitments Trump hammered out that both protect existing jobs and create new jobs by drawing in capital under strong American control.

This was the deal the rank-and-file union steelworkers wanted but that was not sought by the international union leadership. This highlighted a common disconnect between the rank and file who live and work here and distant leadership that has no skin in the game.

It’s difficult to overstate just how devastating the demise of the old steel mills was to the region. The economic rug was pulled out from under the area, and this not only affected factory workers but destroyed everything, including restaurants, barber shops, and stores. While new industries have emerged—health care and education in Pittsburgh, for example—they don’t provide the kind of opportunities, especially for those who are not inclined to pursue higher education, that the old mills offered.

“It’s important to understand this was not just economic trauma; it was psychological trauma,” Sracic said, adding, “Steel. Just think of that word. It calls to mind something strong—Superman was the ‘Man of Steel.’ But also something solid, something you can depend on. In a practical sense, it also formed the backbone of the nation, necessary for everything from bridges to bullets. Take away steel, and everything collapses, or so it seemed by the mid-1980s. There is no more security.”

McCormick added, “Only Donald Trump could have made this happen, and I’m grateful for him having me, congressman Mike Kelly, Dan Meuser from our Pennsylvania delegation in the Oval Office yesterday to discuss it.”

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Salena Zito is a Pittsburgh-based columnist for the Washington Examiner. She is the author of “The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics.”

Reprinted with permission from The Daily Signal by Salena Zito.

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.