By Bob Tita

Nippon Steel has roughly doubled its spending plan and even pledged to build a brand-new mill to win Washington's blessing for its takeover of U.S. Steel.

President Trump will soon decide whether it is enough.

Trump and Nippon Steel will start negotiating an agreement directing how the Japanese steelmaker would operate the Pittsburgh-based company and its future investment plans.

The negotiating window opened after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. sent its assessment of the deal's national-security risks to Trump this week. Trump ordered a second Cfius review of the sale in April after President Joe Biden blocked it before leaving office.

The president typically has 15 days to act once Cfius issues its report. Nippon Steel has a deadline of its own. The company's merger agreement with U.S. Steel expires June 18, where it agreed to pay investors $55 a share. The steelmakers could agree to extend the merger agreement to clinch a deal with the president.

Nippon Steel in late 2023 topped competing offers for the storied U.S. company with a blockbuster $14.1 billion bid. Since then, Nippon Steel has touted investment pledges in U.S. Steel's plants to win over skeptical union leaders, mayors and politicians.

That includes Trump, who initially panned Nippon Steel's takeover plan. Since returning to the White House, Trump has encouraged Nippon Steel executives to shower investments on U.S. Steel, whose older mills have been hurt by years of losses and deferred maintenance.

The Tokyo-based company is now pledging to invest at least $11 billion in U.S. Steel's plants by 2028, according to people familiar with the matter. The total was earlier reported by Reuters and other media outlets.

The investment could eventually reach about $14 billion with a new steel plant recently added to the to-do list. A location and the timing of the project have yet to be determined, people close to the discussions said.

The United Steelworkers union remains steadfast in its opposition to the deal. The union has also accused Nippon Steel of undermining the American steel market for decades by selling unfairly low-price imports.

"It is simply absurd to think that we could ever entrust the future of one of our most vital industries -- essential to both national defense and critical infrastructure -- to a company whose unfair trade practices continue to this day," said Dave McCall, the union's international president, on Thursday.

Nippon Steel pledged to honor the union's bargaining agreements with U.S. Steel and refrain from layoffs and plant closings through the end of the current contract in 2026.

Nippon Steel executives have said the company isn't buying U.S. Steel to close it. The company is keen on adding the U.S. business to help offset declining sales in Japan. U.S. Steel primarily supplies sheet steel to the automotive, appliance and construction industries, and it doesn't produce steel for the military.

Over the past few months, Nippon Steel executives have had several meetings with Trump administration officials in Washington to outline their plans and spending commitments.

Trump has encouraged the companies to restructure their deal so that Nippon Steel would invest in the U.S. steelmaker, without fully owning it.

Executives at Nippon Steel, the world's fourth-largest steelmaker, have balked at that plan. They have argued that the large expenditures in equipment and steelmaking technology would only be possible if the Japanese firm owned and operated U.S. Steel.

"Making it a wholly owned subsidiary is the starting point for negotiations," Vice Chairman Takahiro Mori said earlier this month. "There is no such thing as free technology or investment without returns."

Write to Bob Tita at robert.tita@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 23, 2025 10:00 ET (14:00 GMT)

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