US Steel shares gain as Nippon Steel makes last-ditch effort to save deal

American steel (NYSE:X) increased by 3.4% as a Nippon Steel (OTCPK:NPSCY) executive reportedly traveled to Washington to meet with U.S. officials in a bid to save the planned $14 billion purchase of U.S. Steel.

Many media reports indicated that Nippon Steel’s vice president Takahiro Mori was on Wednesdayscheduled a meeting with several deputy cabinet secretaries who are involved with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an agency that was reportedly preparing to block the deal.

Mori, Nippon Steel’s chief negotiator on the deal, and US Steel (X) CEO David Burritt are expected to meet with Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo and Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves, among others, according to a Reuters report published on Wednesday, citing a person familiar with the matter.

The meeting comes amid reports last week that the Biden administration was preparing to block the U.S. Steel (X) deal. Reuters reported last week that CFIUS sent a letter to Nippon Steel saying the merger would pose a national security risk by harming the U.S. steel industry.

On Wednesday, several US business groups sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in which they alleged that the Biden administration was under undue political influence.

“We are concerned that the CFIUS process is being used to advance political agendas that exceed the scope of the committee’s authority and put the U.S. economy and workers at risk,” the business groups wrote in a letter to Yellen on Wednesday. “It is critical that CFIUS remains focused solely on defending U.S. national security while championing economic openness.”