Nippon Steel will pay $5,000 to each and every U.S. Steel employee in America if its acquisition of the company goes through. It made the announcement Wednesday morning in Japan as press reports indicated that U.S. President Joe Biden is set to block the transaction.

The proposed payment was blasted by the United Steelworkers, which opposes the deal.

“Nippon Steel today employed a classic union-busting tactic in a final, desperate attempt to win over support for its doomed acquisition of U.S. Steel: simple bribery,” union leaders wrote in a statement released after the $5,000 offer was made.

The offer is the latest salvo in Nippon Steel’s efforts to get the $14.9 billion deal over the line, efforts that have included a steady high-level charm offensive as well as suggestions that the fight could get ugly if the deal is rejected. Nippon Steel also promised €3,000 ($3,160) to U.S. Steel employees in Europe once the deal completes, which, combined, adds up to a total of $100 million.

The company had hoped to complete the transaction before the end of the year and the January inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump as president of the United States. Trump has said he opposes the transaction.

According to a Bloomberg story published Wednesday morning, Biden plans to block the deal on national security grounds after a report is issued by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) later this month.

“Nippon Steel still has confidence in the justice and fairness of America and its legal system, and — if necessary — will work with U.S. Steel to consider and take all available measures to reach a fair conclusion,” the company said in a statement Wednesday in response to the Bloomberg report.

Kayo Kikuchi, a spokesperson for Nippon Steel, told The Japan Times that the bonus decision was made prior to the report.

U.S. Steel fell as much as 22% in trading Tuesday after news broke that the deal could be blocked, ending the day down about 10%. Nippon Steel stock was little changed Wednesday morning.

The Japanese steelmaker had previously indicated the possibility of initiating litigation against the U.S. government if the deal gets blocked, and some analysts have predicted heightened trade tensions if the transaction is rejected.

“Nippon is begging union members to trade our long-term stability and bargaining power in exchange for a single payment,” the union statement reads. “This offer ultimately does nothing to change the stakes of the deal, the lasting damage it could do to our domestic steel industry or the grave implications for our national and economic security.”

While some analysts had predicted a depoliticization of the takeover following the Nov. 5 U.S election and a quiet conclusion of the transaction, both Republicans and Democrats have dug in on the matter.

Trump, after months of silence on the deal, said in a social media post last week that he is “totally against” U.S. Steel being bought by a foreign entity, adding that he will block the deal as president.

“It is inappropriate that politics continue to outweigh true national security interests — especially with the indispensable alliance between the U.S. and Japan as the important foundation,” Nippon Steel said in the Wednesday statement.

Nippon Steel has made a series of commitments over the past year, which include maintaining U.S. Steel’s blast furnace operations, not importing steel slabs to the U.S. from overseas, not reducing U.S. Steel’s domestic capabilities, investing at least $2.7 billion, protecting benefits, transferring technology and keeping U.S. Steel’s headquarters in Pittsburgh, with a board of directors controlled by U.S. citizens.

“I think the explicit reiteration of opposition took into account public sentiment, which isn’t purely based on economic principles,” said Takahide Kiuchi, an economist at Nomura Research Institute and a former Bank of Japan Policy Board member, on Trump’s remarks last week.

“From a purely economic perspective, this aligns with the principles Trump advocates for, so there shouldn’t be any opposition. However, the backlash against a traditional American company being acquired by a foreign entity seems to be the problem,” Kiuchi said.

Challenges to a rejection of the deal by a U.S. president are unlikely to succeed.

In a 2019 article, Los Angeles-based Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan wrote that CFIUS decisions are not subject to judicial review, while noting that limited options might exist.

"Under the CFIUS system, the CFIUS makes a negative recommendation, the president receives that recommendation and blocks the transaction — that's all within the law, or at least the formalities of the law," said Bruce Aronson, an adjunct professor and senior adviser at New York University's U.S.-Asia Law Institute.