After more than 17 months of lobbying and close-fought negotiations to secure control of United States Steel, Japan’s Nippon Steel appeared on Friday to have received a presidential blessing.
Days later, however, investors, executives and diplomats are still unsure of what exactly the U.S. president endorsed.
Donald Trump heralded a "planned partnership” between the two industrial heavyweights, claiming it would create "at least 70,000 jobs” — roughly five times U.S. Steel’s current American employees — and add $14 billion to the U.S. economy. But his unexpected announcement stopped short of explicitly endorsing Nippon Steel’s proposed $14.1 billion cash takeover of U.S. Steel, instead asserting that the company would "remain American.”
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