US Steel’s merger meltdown

A file photo of steam rising from US Steel’s Edgar Thomson Steel Works plant in Braddock, Pennsylvania on March 10, 2023. The onetime dynamo is fighting to revive a takeover by Nippon Steel. Other tie-ups could also face obstacles, and going at it alone could force cutbacks. — ©2025 The New York Times Company

FOR more than a year, US Steel pursued an ambitious solution to its mounting challenges.

Once a symbol of American industrial might, it had agreed to a takeover by Nippon Steel, a Japanese rival, in a bid to ward off obsolescence.