President Biden talks with supporters throughout a marketing campaign occasion in Saginaw, Mich., on March 14.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

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Jacquelyn Martin/AP

President Biden talks with supporters throughout a marketing campaign occasion in Saginaw, Mich., on March 14.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

President Biden on Thursday stated he opposes a deal that might see Japan’s Nippon Steel take over U.S. Steel, a proposed takeover that has grow to be a political lightning rod for the presidential race in midwestern swing states.

The $15 billion deal was introduced in December, and has been fiercely opposed by the United Steelworkers union. U.S. Steel is based in Pennsylvania — a battleground state for 2024 — and has operations in Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and different states as nicely.

The White House stated Biden had known as the president of the union to relay his message.

“It is important that we maintain strong American steel companies powered by American steel workers,” Biden stated in an announcement launched by the White House on a day that visited Saginaw, Mich., for a marketing campaign occasion.

“I told our steelworkers I have their backs, and I meant it. U.S. Steel has been an iconic American steel company for more than a century, and it is vital for it to remain an American steel company that is domestically owned and operated,” Biden stated.

Biden has been courting union voters in swing states, and scored a high-profile endorsement from the United Auto Workers earlier this 12 months after he marched on a picket line. He has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO and greater than two dozen different nationwide unions, and met with the Teamsters this week.

Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive nominee for Republicans within the November race, said that he would block the deal if he’s elected. He made the feedback after assembly with the Teamsters in January. Trump had slapped tariffs on metal imports when he was in workplace.

The United Steelworkers has not endorsed a candidate, although they backed Biden in 2020. Last month, union President David McCall stated that he had acquired “personal assurances” that Biden had taken an curiosity within the deal.

Pennsylvania’s Democratic senators Bob Casey and John Fetterman have urged the Committee on Foreign Investments within the United States (CFIUS) to dam to the deal, and in December, Biden’s prime financial adviser Lael Brainard took the bizarre step of publicly disclosing that the deal needs to be scrutinized for potential nationwide safety points.