Trump pledged to block U.S. Steel merger with Nippon, but his inner circle is pushing for the deal

Former President Donald Trump was quick to announce his opposition earlier this year to a proposed $14.9 billion sale of U.S. Steel to the Japanese corporation Nippon Steel, but influential people close to Trump have been working to push the sale through behind the scenes ever since.

Trump, who is seeking another term in the White House, first said in January that he would block the deal and reiterated his opposition last month.

“I will stop Japan from buying United States Steel,” Trump said on Aug. 19 at a campaign event at a York County factory. “They shouldn’t be allowed to buy it.”

But his pledge to block the purchase of the iconic Pittsburgh company runs contrary to the advice of one of his top advisers and contradicts the work of lobbyists who have been part of his inner circle and are supporting his campaign for president.

TribLive has discovered that two lobbyists working to push the Nippon Steel purchase through have close ties to Trump and have bundled more than $5.3 million in donations to one of Trump’s official PACs this year, according to federal campaign finance filings. A former Trump administration Cabinet member has been hired by Nippon, according to numerous media reports. And a current Trump campaign adviser has broken with the former president’s public statements and is advocating for the deal.

Geoffrey Verhoff of the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld is registered to lobby the White House on the “proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel and impact on U.S.-Japan bilateral relationship,” according to congressional lobbying disclosure forms.

Verhoff bundled more than $3.6 million to the Trump 47 Committee, a joint fundraising vehicle with the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.

Brian Ballard of Florida-based Ballard Partners bundled over $1.7 million to Trump’s joint fundraising committee. Ballard also personally donated $250,000 to the Trump 47 Committee, according to campaign finance filings.

Ballard was described in a 2018 Politico profile as “closer to the president than perhaps any other lobbyist” in Washington, D.C.

Both registered as lobbyists for Nippon in April.

Calls to Ballard Partners were not returned. Verhoff returned an email from TribLive to set up a time to talk, then did not return calls.

Bundling is the practice of combining several small individual campaign contributions into one large contribution.

The multibillion-dollar U.S. Steel sale to Nippon was first proposed in December, with Nippon saying that it would maintain U.S. Steel’s headquarters in Downtown Pittsburgh and honor current labor agreements.

The deal has been held up due to national security concerns, according to a letter from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, as reported by Reuters.

United Steelworkers, the labor union that represents many U.S. Steel employees, was critical of the proposal from the start, complaining that it was left in the dark about the proposed deal. The union also said that it lacks trust that U.S. Steel and Nippon would have the workers’ best interests at heart.

Some local Democrats, including U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, who lives across the street from U.S. Steel’s Edgar Thomson steel mill in Braddock, joined the union in opposing the sale.

Trump followed suit in January and vowed to block the deal.

President Joe Biden first voiced his opposition in March and then again in April when visiting Pittsburgh. This week, The Washington Post reported that Biden will block the deal.

On Labor Day, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, said U.S. Steel should remain domestically owned and vowed to support the Steelworkers.

Trump allies disagree with the former president

Fetterman on Friday decried the close relationship between Nippon lobbyists and the Trump campaign, implying that Trump’s support in the matter could be up for sale. He said politicians’ loyalty should be to the workers represented by the United Steelworkers.

“My support only followed the women and men of United Steelworkers — and it is not for sale,” Fetterman said. “Fighting for American workers, communities, and steel shouldn’t cost $5 million.”

Though Trump has stayed rhetorically consistent in his opposition to the sale, splinters are beginning to form among his close allies and Pittsburgh-area Republicans.

His campaign’s senior economic adviser Stephen Moore publicly disagreed with the former president this week.

Moore, who was nominated by Trump in 2019 to serve on the Federal Reserve but withdrew his name from consideration amid controversy, spoke on a Virginia-based conservative talk radio show on Tuesday and said he thinks it would be a mistake to block the merger.

“This is one of those rare occasions where I think Trump and Kamala Harris are wrong,” Moore said on WMAL-FM on Tuesday. “We should approve this deal. It would protect those American jobs and keep those steel plants open. And help us compete with China. If this doesn’t go through, a lot of those steel mills would just shut down.”

Mike Pompeo, a former Kansas congressman who served as CIA director and secretary of state under Trump, was hired by Nippon in July to help push the sale through, according to Bloomberg. Pompeo still has close ties to the former president.

He delivered a speech at the Republican National Convention and has been rumored to resume his role as secretary of state if Trump wins in November.

The Trump campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Support for deal

Over the last two months, some local Republicans have started to come out in support of the Nippon deal.

Allegheny County Councilman Sam DeMarco, R-North Fayette, told TribLive on Tuesday it would be a mistake to reject the Nippon purchase. In August, he said on social media that failing to get the deal would mean more disinvestment for the Mon Valley region, which is home to three U.S. Steel facilities.

“Promising to further take away their hope for the future and stop capital improvements and modernization of local facilities, ensuring steelworkers jobs for decades, is not going to win votes,” DeMarco said in August. DeMarco also serves as chair of the Republican Committee of Allegheny County.

State Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, R-Hempfield, the highest-ranking Republican in Pennsylvania state government, last week praised Nippon’s pledge to invest $1 billion in the Mon Valley.

“Nippon Steel’s investments in cutting-edge infrastructure at the Mon Valley Works facility will not only jump-start innovation and secure jobs for our region to grow and compete, but will also generate critical construction jobs for the building trades which will help create certainty for all,” Ward said in an Aug. 30 statement.

“With grace and grit, many southwestern Pennsylvania families built this country and our state alongside U.S. Steel and we will continue to do all we can to maintain its presence where it belongs — the Steel City.”

On Tuesday, U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt said in The Wall Street Journal that his company could be forced to leave Western Pennsylvania without the Nippon purchase.

The United Steelworkers has decried the Nippon deal — favoring a merger with the Ohio-based Cleveland-Cliffs, with its own stainless steel plant near Butler.

In a Sept. 4 letter to union members, United Steelworkers president David McCall called Burritt’s statement “reckless” and he lamented the company’s history of divesting from the Pittsburgh region only to move investment to its non-unionized facility in Big River, Ark.

McCall said he lacks faith that Nippon will follow through on its pledges. He wrote that “a press release is not a contract.”

He said U.S. Steel and its allies putting more pressure on pushing through the sale will only continue disinvestment in the Pittsburgh region and the Midwest.

“We’ve seen Burritt’s work in action as he’s sought to increase the short-term stock price but shrink stockholder value to restructure U.S. Steel as a mini-mill,” McCall wrote in his letter.

“The ‘plan’ has been to shut down steel making in Great Lakes and Granite City and expand Big River and to kill four tin lines, opening the market to Nippon’s imports.”