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By Yuka Obayashi and Rocky Swift
TOKYO (Reuters) - Nippon Steel plans to use its current merger agreement to acquire U.S. Steel as a starting point for talks with the U.S. government, President Tadashi Imai said on Tuesday, as it aims to revive the deal.
Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump, alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at the Oval Office, said that Nippon Steel's $14.9 billion bid for U.S. Steel, which was blocked by former President Joe Biden, would take the form of an investment instead of a purchase.
Trump also said in mid-February that he would not mind if Nippon Steel took a minority stake in U.S. Steel.
Imai, however, said that the Japan's top steelmaker's current merger agreement with U.S. Steel will serve as a starting point for discussions with the U.S. government including Department of Commerce.
Equity investment and capital spending can not considered separately, Imai said.
"Only by making an equity investment, we can make a major (capital) spending decision," he said.
"We are about to start discussions with the U.S. government," Imai said, adding that the Japanese company will talk with the U.S. government about what it can do to get President Trump's approval.
Nippon Steel, the world's fourth-biggest steelmaker, made a $14.9 billion bid for U.S. Steel in December 2023, ultimately promising billions of dollars in investment to revamp its aging infrastructure and pledging to keep its headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The deal faced political headwinds from the start, with both Trump and Biden vowing to kill the transaction in a bid to appeal to voters in the election swing state of Pennsylvania, and was blocked by the Biden administration over national security concerns.
In January, the steelmakers asked the courts to reject the block, saying Biden unfairly intervened in a national security review to benefit himself politically, poisoning the process.
Nippon Steel's bid for U.S. Steel is central to the Japanese company's global expansion plan.
(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi and Rocky Swift; Editing by Tom Hogue, Christopher Cushing and David Evans)
