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A potential U.S. Steel deal has been a long time in the making. We saw a surge of over 20% in U.S. Steel stock reflecting optimism as a deal with Nippon Steel progresses. Late last week, President Trump made news by reviving the deal and endorsing a partnership with Japan's Nippon Steel. Under that plan, it would remain headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with an American CEO and a board with a U.S. majority overseeing operations. Then Nippon would invest $14 billion including building a new U.S. Steel mill and upgrading existing plants. The agreement would address national security concerns while allowing foreign investment. Our next guest has been following this all very closely. He is Axios's business editor, Dan Primack. Dan, it is always good to see you. So you are arguing in your piece, Dan. You say listen, this actually is all entering I think Dan you called it the ludicrous stage. Correct me if I'm wrong. What did you mean by that, Dan?

I mean for starters, we get an announcement from Trump and sort of from U.S. Steel last Friday saying there's a quote partnership. They make no mention of the acquisition of the $55 per share that U.S. Steel shareholders are supposedly getting, but maybe not because we haven't called it an acquisition. Uh and then today, Tuesday, when the markets reopen, U.S. Steel shares continue to trade on the New York Stock Exchange, which decides not to halt it or even explain why they haven't halted it. So everybody thinks there's a deal, but isn't 100% sure and we haven't seen any of the real details. You know, you talk about that $14 billion then upon is promised, maybe, is it guaranteed? If so, how? The earlier pledges were just that, they were pledges, but Nippon could have bailed on those if it wanted to for no particular reason. So really, this is the strangest thing. We have a massive, massive acquisition, a $15 billion acquisition that no one's acknowledging right now as an acquisition and U.S. Steel isn't saying it basically because they don't want to step on Trump's toes because he's got this big in-person press conference on Friday.

Yeah, don't you feel to some extent, Dan, like this is a bit of face saving though and you come almost look at the outcome in the market to say, oh, okay, so we're calling it a partnership, but effectively the deal is going to close as originally envisioned all the way back in like December 2023. Um, and then so we're just sort of working on politics. So, uh President Trump can say 70,000 jobs, $14 billion, you know, headquarters in in Pittsburgh. Uh, so look at that while essentially I just let the deal close. It feels like that's what the market's saying.

Basically, yes, although that's embarrassing for U.S. Steel or U.S. Steel should be embarrassed that it feels it has to cow tow in that sense. And as for the Pittsburgh thing, that was a big announcement, part of the announcement Friday, right? The headquarters will remain in Pittsburgh. The headquarters was always going to remain in Pittsburgh. That was part of the deal. The only reason it was going to move from Pittsburgh or that U.S. Steel even threatened that was if the deal did not close. So that was never that was never a source of negotiation in the first place.

Dan, I did hear uh Senator Dave McCormick give an interview this morning and he talked about how there's going to be a U.S. CEO. He said there's going to be a U.S. majority board. U.S. is going to have golden share and Nippon Steel's takeover of U.S. Steel. Is this what is it what Nippon has signed off on all this already, Dan?

We don't know uh because they haven't said anything either. Uh so we're not exactly sure. And then let's assume that what McCormick said is true and that all comes to pass. It's still unclear why any of that necessarily matters. Now to some extent, would you obviously rather have local ownership or not local ownership? Local management of U.S. Steel? Sure, it's closer to the workers, it's closer to the product, it's closer to the customer, should be more responsive. However, go back to that $14 billion in promised investment. Just because you have a U.S. CEO and a U.S. board of the subsidiary, they can't pull, it's not like they have access to the bank accounts, they can't pull that money if it's not forthcoming. That money's still coming from Japan or not coming from Japan. That that golden share isn't really necessarily worth anything when it comes to that money coming in or future plans.

So do you think this story is is incredibly long and very odd story coming to an end finally? Like what are you going to watch for or do you think we have a few more twists and turns? Cuz, you know, early uh with the Prime Minister of Japan, Trump said, you know, it's going to be an investment. You know, the companies didn't know anything about it. They never commented on that comment and it just sort of went off into the ether. Are we finally into the end game or do we wait for a couple more things?

I think with all things Trump and every sort of uh deal he negotiates or doesn't negotiate, you kind of do have to wait till it ends. I will tell you that as of this morning, uh the Steel Workers Union really was completely still in the dark. All they knew were the public statements. They hadn't had any back channel communications over the weekend. So I think we still have to wait. I will say the bigger picture thing here outside of U.S. Steel is what this means for future deal making, cross-border deal making, particularly for deals that might have national security implications, because one of the takeaways I would think if I was a foreign acquirer of a U.S. company is I would look at this and go, okay, if there are national security concerns, the way we leapfrog those is to buy our way out of it, promise lots of investment, and then those national security concerns maybe will get put aside.