Nearly a year after U.S. Steel completed its long-awaited sale to Japan-based Nippon Steel, the company projected that its $2.5 billion investment in Mon Valley Works would generate $1.7 billion in economic impact across Pennsylvania.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick celebrated the news in front of around 100 U.S. Steel workers at Mon Valley Works’ Edgar Thomson Plant in Braddock Monday afternoon, delivering a speech that sounded like a victory lap.
He cleared his throat as he stepped up to the podium and then reconsidered, stepping back down to shake hands with every steelworker in the front row, clapping some on the back and exchanging greetings.
Returning to the podium, he said “investment in steel and American steel is coming back. … That’s why production is coming back, and it’s going to come back right here.”
Nippon Steel acquired U.S. Steel for $14.9 billion on June 18, after more than a year of deal-making. The Biden administration opposed the deal and blocked it in January 2025 on national security grounds. As a presidential candidate and after winning the presidential election in 2024, Donald Trump was against the sale to Nippon; but in the early months of 2025, the Trump administration reversed course and all parties worked out a new deal.
The final terms kept the company’s headquarters in the Pittsburgh region and gave the government a “golden share” to veto certain decisions.
One year later, U.S. Steel estimates Nippon’s investments will generate up to $58 million in state and local tax revenue and create 6,381 jobs over the next three years at Mon Valley Works, which includes Edgar Thomson in Braddock, the Irvin Plant in West Mifflin and the Clairton Coke Works. The Fairless Plant, outside of Philadelphia, is also part of Mon Valley Works in U.S. Steel’s organizational structure. The facilities collectively produce up to 2.9 million net tons of steel per year.
The investment’s centerpiece in Pennsylvania is a brand-new Hot Strip Mill at Edgar Thomson, which will replace an 87-year-old mill at the Irvin Plant.
U.S. Steel officials said in a release that the new facility will deliver improved yield and reduce energy consumption, allowing Mon Valley Works to make low-cost exposed automotive and line pipe steels that it currently “cannot competitively produce.” U.S. Steel has yet to begin constructing the mill; it expects the mill to be complete in 2029.
Nippon initially announced it planned to invest at least $1 billion into the Mon Valley Works in 2024. The increase to up to $2.5 billion accounts for the “expanded scope of improvements” planned for Edgar Thomson in particular, according to the U.S. Steel report.
U.S. Steel President and CEO David Burritt introduced Lutnick at the podium, saying he received “a master class in negotiation from this man” and Lutnick secured “the best deal in American steel. … They said this day would never come, and yet here we are, recognizing the people that made it happen.”
Lutnick said Trump “has the back” of steelworkers and praised him for prioritizing steel production in the United States.
“Because of President Trump, U.S. Steel is going to thrive,” he said. “A country that can’t make steel can’t control its own national security, and for far too long, too many people in Washington just forgot about that.”
Lutnick told TribLive he believed Nippon was living up to its end of the deal, which will invest a total of $11 billion into American-made steel.
“So far, so good,” he said. “I think it’s working great.”
The U.S. Steel deal has not come without its detractors. In March, environmental group SteelWatch released a report criticizing Nippon for its high coal usage and for purportedly failing to adequately protect its workers from pollutants. U.S. Steel spokesman Andrew Fulton responded that the group was “anti-business.”