US Steel sale reaction evokes ’80s Japan bashers

If glittering history is the measure, few American companies can rival United States Steel. Legendary names like Andrew Carnegie and JP Morgan were involved in its creation 120-plus years ago. It was once the world’s most valuable company. It was once the world’s largest steelmaker.

Today the Pittsburgh-based company doesn’t rank in the world’s top 20 steel-producing companies. Six of the top 10 are Chinese. All but one are Asian. (https://www.reuters.com/…)

US Steel isn’t even America’s largest steelmaker – that would be Nucor Corporation. US Steel’s market value is less than 1% of the value of the world’s most valuable company, Apple (market capitalization: $2.9 trillion).

Still, between its illustrious history and its nationality-invoking name, US Steel is an American icon, like Ford or Coca-Cola or McDonald’s. Perhaps that’s why many Americans were shocked by the announcement that US Steel agreed to be acquired by Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest steelmaker and the world’s No. 4.

Among those most shocked were the United Steelworkers Union and Pennsylvania’s Senator John Fetterman. He called the sale “absolutely outrageous” and vowed to fight it.

Yet as shocking as a Japanese bid for US Steel might seem, it’s not like the American steel industry has never known foreign or even Asian ownership. A Luxembourg-based company with Indian roots has owned steelmakers in the US.

Korean and Japanese steelmakers produce steel in the US in joint ventures. Nippon Steel itself acquired a small interest in Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel in 1984.

It’s been a long time – at least 50 years – since this country was home to the world’s leading steel industry. In the 1950s and ’60s, American steel companies failed to invest in new steelmaking