UK government approves second runway at Gatwick airport
Prime minister backs growth-creating projects in London area in spite of environmental objections
Plans to build a £2.2bn second runway at London’s Gatwick airport were given the green light by the government on Sunday evening, with ministers hoping that planes could be using the new facility by the end of the decade.
Heidi Alexander, transport secretary, approved the scheme with conditions on noise abatement and public transport to the UK’s second-largest airport. Labour officials claimed the move was “a no brainer”.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has told ministers to accelerate progress on big infrastructure projects as he seeks to show his government is serious about boosting growth.
Alexander’s allies said the transport secretary had moved as swiftly as possible to navigate “a needlessly complex planning system” to provide extra airport capacity for London and the South-east.
Last month, Heathrow airport unveiled plans for a £49bn expansion that included building a third runway and rerouting Britain’s busiest motorway, telling ministers they needed to “clear the way for take-off”.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she hoped Heathrow would see “spades in the ground” before the next election, which must happen by 2029. But the Gatwick scheme is much more straightforward, with all of the major work taking place within the airport’s existing perimeter.
Attempts to kick-start airport expansion in the London area, on hold for decades, is one of the most visible signs of Starmer’s attempt to prove he is backing growth-creating projects in spite of environmental objections.
A planning bill to boost housing is going through parliament and Labour officials say Starmer will bring forward a second planning bill next year to speed up big infrastructure projects.
Government officials concede that if the Gatwick scheme is subject to a lengthy judicial review, a process that the second planning bill would aim to curtail, then the project could be delayed.
Airport officials believe a judicial review could add another 12-18 months on to the timeframe.
Alexander said in February she was “minded” to approve a second runway, but only if Gatwick agreed to change its plan by adding more stringent targets both for access to the site by public transport and for noise mitigation.
The £2.2bn Gatwick project, which will be funded by existing shareholders, would expand capacity by moving the emergency landing strip 12 metres to the north.
Relocating the strip — which doubles as a runway when the airport’s main runway is out of action — would put enough space between the reconfigured runways so that both could operate simultaneously.
The first flights could take off by the end of the decade, Gatwick has previously said, and an expanded airport would be able to handle up to 75mn passengers a year by the late 2030s, up from the record 46.5mn in 2019.
A government official said: “With capacity constraints holding back business, trade and tourism, this is a no-brainer for growth.
“This government has taken unprecedented steps to get this done, navigating a needlessly complex planning system, which our reforms will simplify in future.
“Any airport expansion must be delivered in line with our legally binding climate-change commitments and meet strict environmental requirements.”
Among the conditions for approval of the Gatwick second runway is a requirement for the operator to help affected householders, for example by providing triple glazing or paying for moving costs.
The Planning Inspectorate had recommended refusing Gatwick’s original proposal but, unusually, said it would approve the project should changes be made.
The agency, which handles decisions on land-use planning, had demanded in February that the airport adopt a legally binding target where 54 per cent of passengers arrive by public transport, compared to 47 per cent currently.
American Express Reveals New Platinum Card Retail and Wellness Benefits, Revamps Amex App
The credit card company has unveiled its newest benefits, including Lululemon, Oura alongside Saks and Walmart partnerships for its premium U.S. consumer card.
With the launch of its refreshed American Express Platinum card, the card company has also revealed a slew of new benefits for its U.S. cardholders.
With access to more than $3,500 in annual value, the card has also received a facelift with its limited-edition mirror design. Most notably, Amex has upped its annual fee costs for both Platinum cards to $895 each.
Benefits across the shopping space with its retail partners include Lululemon, Saks Fifth Avenue, Walmart and Oura.
When using the Platinum Card and enrolled in its benefits online, card members can receive $75 back in Lululemon credit card statements each quarter at retail store locations or its e-commerce website for a total of $300; up to $100 annual in statement credits for Saks Fifth Avenue purchases; $12.95 in statement credit back each month when purchasing a monthly Walmart+ membership, and up to $200 back in statement credits each calendar year when purchasing an Oura Ring through its website.
Dining benefits include Resy with up to $400 in statement credits each quarter, including purchases at more than 10,000 U.S. Resy restaurants. On top of the credit earned, consumers and business card members will also have access to its Platinum Nights by Resy.
The rollout starts in early October and will give members access to reservations, experiences and more at Resy’s most coveted restaurants across New York, Los Angeles and Miami — such as Lilia, L’Artusi, Adda, Bunglow, Claud, Coqodaq, Cote Korean Steakhouse, Tatiana and more.
And in entertainment, the company has added Paramount+, YouTube Premium and YouTube TV to its roster of existing partners.
The company has now also revamped its Amex app, giving its members access to benefits, benefits usage, exploring restaurants on Resy and more. The app will also allow members to enroll in exclusive Amex Offers from Canada Goose, Tumi and more.
“There is really nothing like Platinum membership — we offer more value than ever and with the scale of our lounge, dining and hotel programs, we make it easy for our card members to access this value. Platinum delivers unmatched benefits, unforgettable experiences and world-class service — powered by our award-winning digital capabilities,” said Howard Grosfield, group president of U.S. consumer services at American Express.
Ozempic’s Maker Got Crushed. The Rebound Is Under Way.
With a weight-loss pill on the horizon and the FDA signaling a tougher stance on compounded knockoffs, Novo Nordisk might be turning a corner
Novo Nordisk NOVO.B -0.99%decrease; red down pointing triangle, maker of Ozempic and Wegovy, has a reputation for squandering its lead.
It was first with the weight-loss injection Wegovy, yet Eli Lilly’s LLY -1.43%decrease; red down pointing triangle Zepbound seized the top position. Now Novo is poised to debut a Wegovy pill early next year, pending U.S. regulatory approval. But Lilly’s rival tablet is expected soon after—and could once again come out on top.
Playing second fiddle to Lilly has weighed heavily. Novo’s stock is down more than 50% in the past year.
That reflects slowing growth because of Lilly’s market-share gains, as well as a swelling market for knockoff GLP-1 drugs.
Signs of a turnaround are emerging. Novo shares rallied after the company reported positive clinical data for its obesity program, including news Wednesday that the Wegovy pill produced weight loss comparable to that of the weekly injection. Yet the U.S. shares trade at about 15 times forward earnings—on par with the slower-growing pharmaceutical sector. Eli Lilly, by contrast, fetches 27 times.
Fairly or not, Novo has earned a reputation for moving too slowly—whether in increasing supply, confronting compounders or investing in direct-to-consumer marketing. It now needs to convince investors that it can move with more urgency.
The new chief executive, Mike Doustdar, has wasted little time sending that signal. Earlier this month, Novo said it would cut about 11% of its workforce. For a company long steeped in cautious Danish culture, such a drastic move marks a clear break with the past.
That kind of urgency is most evidently needed in tackling the compounding boom—pharmacies selling knockoff versions of branded drugs long before patents expire. Wegovy now faces de facto competition from dozens of such players, which might already account for as much as 30% of the U.S. obesity market.
Novo has responded with more than 130 lawsuits across 40 states, but much more needs to be done.
Regulators are also turning up the heat. In an article published this month, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary singled out Hims & Hers—one of the largest beneficiaries of the compounding wave—for allegedly misleading advertising. That kind of scrutiny could open the door to broader enforcement against compounders.
Novo’s obesity pipeline is looking more exciting, starting with the Wegovy pill. The company already sells an oral version of semaglutide for Type 2 diabetes, branded as Rybelsus. A higher-dose formulation is now under FDA review for obesity. Until recently, Wall Street was skeptical: Eli Lilly’s rival pill, orforglipron, is cheaper to produce and avoids the fasting restrictions tied to oral semaglutide.
“You have to fast and then wait 30 minutes after taking the drug every morning,” said Evan Seigerman, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets. “Imagine being a busy parent, trying to get the kids out the door and not even able to have your coffee.”
Sentiment shifted last month after Lilly reported disappointing weight-loss results that fell short of Novo’s data. (Lilly recently reported that its pill topped Novo’s semaglutide in a head-to-head trial, but that was a lower-dose diabetes trial.)
Martin Holst Lange, Novo’s chief scientific officer, said in an interview that beyond stronger efficacy, the company’s pill also appears more tolerable, with fewer patients dropping out of trials.
Expectations for oral semaglutide remain modest, but could rise if uptake in the real world proves to be quick. The pharma-intelligence firm Evaluate projects sales of about $3.5 billion by 2032, compared with around $12 billion for Lilly’s orforglipron.
Both are small next to the broader GLP-1 obesity market, which Evaluate expects to nearly quadruple from $26 billion this year to nearly $100 billion by 2032. And with supply issues largely resolved, Novo is in a stronger position than it was when Wegovy first stumbled. “We are prepared for a full launch, with no supply constraints,” a Novo spokeswoman said.
Novo is also pitching breadth. For patients who can’t tolerate GLP-1 drugs, the company is developing a drug called Cagrilintide, which mimics amylin, a satiety hormone. While recent study results showed weight loss of about 12%, which is on the low side, the drug appears to be far better tolerated, said Holst Lange.
For those seeking more efficacy, Novo is advancing CagriSema, a combination of Cagrilintide and semaglutide that has seen weight loss of more than 20% in people with obesity. The company is also expecting late-stage data of semaglutide in Alzheimer’s disease—an effort that could become a blockbuster but is more of a long shot.
“There have been a lot of failed attempts to serve patients with Alzheimer’s, so we don’t want to raise expectations,” said Holst Lange. “But of course, we’re very much looking forward to seeing the data.”
Novo might never fully escape its reputation as a runner-up. But in a market this large, second place can still deliver first-rate returns.
The unfortunate EU foot-dragging on the Draghi plan
Europe’s competitiveness is waning due to inertia in Brussels and national capitals
EU capitals are watching with alarm as US President Donald Trump tramples on political and commercial norms at home and globally — while privately wondering if America’s misfortunes might open up opportunities for Europe. If so, the opportunities are not being seized.
A year after Mario Draghi’s doorstep-sized report urged the EU to improve its competitiveness, the former Italian prime minister warned instead last week that the bloc was falling further behind its global rivals. For all the efforts to bolster resilience in the face of Trump’s tariffs and demands for Europe to fund more of its own defence, Draghi warned that “inaction” on structural reforms by Brussels and EU states “threatens not only our competitiveness but our sovereignty itself”.
It was a damning verdict, but not unfair. Of Draghi’s 383 recommendations, including integrating capital markets, strengthening supply chains and aligning business regulations, an audit by the European Policy Innovation Council found only 11 per cent had been adopted. Deutsche Bank analysts found most progress had been in scaling up the defence industry, where the urgency was felt most strongly, and in areas of least resistance such as cutting red tape — though this had sometimes been done in ham-fisted ways.
European officials have argued that Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, and national leaders have been preoccupied with handling Trump’s tariff threats and wayward policies on Ukraine. The realities are more complex. Many of Draghi’s recommendations have been adopted into the commission’s work programme. In January, Brussels unveiled a Competitiveness Compass, condensing some of his core ideas into specific goals such as revamping capital rules to let banks invest more freely and joint purchases of critical raw materials. But the EU executive has held back from pursuing some of Draghi’s bolder ideas, such as joint funding for vital strategic industries and infrastructure projects.
That leaves it to national governments to finance most industrial policy and investment decisions themselves. Many key reforms such as those affecting tax policy, labour markets and pensions have to be pursued at member state level — where political barriers and national sensitivities abound.
Plenty of low-hanging fruit could, however, be pursued more rapidly. The single market remains far from complete; there has been far too little progress towards a capital markets union to create a deeper funding pool out of Europe’s scattered and shallow money markets.
One area that deserves a push is the “28th regime” — or enabling companies to incorporate directly under a pan-EU legal code that would sit alongside the 27 national legal systems. This would enable companies including start-ups to expand across EU borders without having to deal with new rules each time — allowing them to scale up much faster and unlock the potential that the 450mn-strong single market is supposed to offer.
Draghi also called for speeding up the review of merger rules he recommended, now being carried out by the EU’s competition chief Teresa Ribera. It is important to get reforms here right. But the launch of the review has slowed corporate activity as business executives wait for clarity before making investment decisions.
Where not all capitals can agree, EU countries should form “coalitions of the willing” to move forward with certain initiatives. Above all, the priority is to break out of the inertia that, as Draghi notes, is sometimes even presented as “respect for the rule of law”. In fact, he says, it represents complacency. Trump or no Trump, that is a luxury an ossifying EU cannot afford.
Disconnected phone calls leave billions of dollars on the hook for Humana
Health insurance company challenges complex US star ratings system in court
Health insurer Humana is fighting the US health department in court over three disconnected phone calls to the company’s customer service line, a dispute that could cost it billions of dollars.
Customer calls are part of the rating system that allocates from one to five stars to insurers offering coverage through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which provides health coverage to more than 160mn Americans.
The ratings, closely watched by Wall Street, influence access to lucrative bonus payments, and as CMS prepares to release its 2026 stars early next month, insurers are scrapping to preserve their standing. In October 2024, when CMS last announced its star ratings for insurers, Humana’s shares sank 12 per cent after the company disclosed disappointing results.
Capstone, a policy firm that covers health insurers, and Wells Fargo, have estimated Humana’s disappointing stars results could wipe out $3bn in revenue for the company.
“It underscores the Byzantine nature of the star ratings system that you can have billions of dollars riding on whether a single call is dropped,” said Matthew Gillmor, director of equity research at KeyBanc. Taxpayers, he said, might prefer that cancer screening rates or other health outcomes carry greater significance than dropped calls.
Humana sued the government over its rating in October 2024. CMS included foreign-language assistance for customer callers in its stars metrics. To receive five stars on the call centre metric, CMS required a 100 per cent success rate for foreign language calls. Three Humana test calls involving a third-party connecting an interpreter did not work, hurting Humana’s overall star rating.
In court filings, CMS said: “Humana hung up on all three callers,” adding: “This lawsuit is Humana’s attempt to have a court absolve it of responsibilities for its own shortcomings in providing the barest minimum of customer service to Medicare beneficiaries.”
Humana, which has about 17mn Americans in health plans, declined to comment. The company has asked for a ruling in its case by October 15.
A vestige of president Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, the star ratings — ranking companies from one to five — are intended to help people vet their insurance options for certain Medicare plans, which provide coverage for the aged and disabled. But with about three dozen metrics going into calculating the ratings, its complexity can be confusing — and insurance companies use such convolutions to fight for higher ratings in court.
Medicare plans with higher stars earn more federal dollars, which are intended to cut costs for patients or expand services. These ratings for various Medicare plans resulted in $12.7bn in government bonus payments to insurance companies this year, more than four times the amount the government doled out in 2015, according to KFF, a non-profit health policy research group. An increasing number of people are enrolled in four- or five-star plans, which pay out more.
“Star ratings play a more consequential role in the payments for [insurers] plans than they do in beneficiaries’ decisions about which plans to enrol in,” said Jeannie Fuglesten Biniek, an associate director on Medicare policy at KFF.
“Having a higher star rating allows you to have more dollars to spend on those benefits, and that seems to be a strategy that insurers have in terms of thinking about their competition in the market.”
Health insurance companies also use their star ratings to compete with each other over supplemental benefits such as dental and vision care, Fuglesten Biniek said. But with so many four- or five-star plans on the market, the programme does not always help people determine quality, she said.
In November 2024, UnitedHealth won a court fight over CMS that hinged on a single test phone call. The company disputed CMS’s claim that one of its test calls was dropped. A judge ordered CMS to recalculate its 2025 star rating without considering the dropped call.
UnitedHealth’s shares jumped 8 per cent on one day earlier this month after the company disclosed that about 78 per cent of its members are expected to be in four-star or higher plans next year. Its shares are down 33 per cent so far this year.
“The [companies] are using the complications in order to achieve the higher stars through the courts,” said David Mohler, a vice-president at Capstone.
The Paragon Health Institute, a conservative-leaning think-tank with ties to the Trump administration, has recommended eliminating the star system.
“Given the tenuous relationship between star ratings and actual quality, quality bonus payments should be eliminated,” Paragon said in a 2024 report.
High Seas treaty looms over deep-ocean mining plans
Global agreement will become international law after ratification by more than 60 countries
A newly ratified treaty to protect life at sea is expected to catalyse opposition to deep-sea mining ahead of a UN climate summit in New York.
The High Seas treaty will become international law in January after it reached a threshold on Friday of more than 60 ratifications, with Morocco joining the list of countries to do so.
It emphasises the need for a “precautionary” approach to human activities on the seabed as well as in sea waters.
The global agreement also aims to create protected areas covering almost a third of the world’s seas outside of national boundaries, and says that future profits from genetic material found at sea should be shared between countries.
The US has signed but not ratified the High Seas treaty. President Donald Trump’s administration outlined plans this year to allocate licences for private companies to mine for critical minerals in international waters, even without the permission of a UN-backed regulator.
Monica Medina, a fellow at the non-profit Conservation International and former US assistant secretary of state for oceans, international environmental and scientific affairs, said the “increasing threats” of deep-sea mining, overfishing, climate change and pollution made the High Seas treaty and its implementation particularly timely.
Around 38 countries have called for more work to be done before mining can go ahead because of concerns that it could harm the little-studied fauna and flora that have adapted to survive thousands of metres below the surface.
More countries are expected to ratify the High Seas treaty at an UN climate summit taking place in New York this week to coincide with the leaders’ general assembly.
France, the only G7 country to have ratified the treaty so far, has been behind a push for a coalition of “ocean pioneer” states that have both ratified the treaty and also oppose deep-sea mining.
A French state-funded scientific research institute is among the bodies allocated a licence to explore part of the Pacific seabed for minerals, including cobalt and copper. But President Emmanuel Macron has been one of the strongest voices on the international stage to make the case for a moratorium on commercial mining activity.
While the High Seas treaty does not explicitly refer to mining, it calls for countries to co-operate with bodies including the Jamaica-based International Seabed Authority, which is yet to give a green light for mining in international waters.
Duncan Currie, an international lawyer who attended years-long negotiations for the treaty, said its ratification was a “triumph of multilateralism in an increasingly complex world order”.
Its ratification will also add momentum to other measures to protect the world’s rapidly warming oceans, which act as a vital sink for greenhouse gases and absorb most of the excess heat from the burning of fossil fuels.
France and Brazil earlier this year called on governments to write ocean-based strategies into updated national climate plans, which are due to be submitted ahead of a wider UN climate summit in Brazil in November.
These solutions could include restoring marine ecosystems to help them better absorb carbon dioxide, as well as efforts to decarbonise maritime industries, such as shipping.
Former US secretary of state John Kerry and UN COP30 chief executive Ana Toni are both due to speak in New York on Monday at an event promoting marine protection as a climate solution.
Ukraine’s Supply Runs Turn to Nightmares as Drones Menace Roads Far Beyond the Front
New drone technology has allowed Moscow to menace Ukrainian vehicles up to 20 miles from the front line
Russia is using drones to target Ukrainian supply routes, even far from the front lines, to isolate Ukrainian strongholds.
Ukraine is adapting by using smaller vehicles, traveling at night, and installing antidrone netting over supply routes.
The increased attacks on logistics are worsening shortages of supplies and making troop rotations more difficult for Ukraine.
KRAMATORSK, Ukraine—As the daylight was fading, a Ukrainian pickup truck sped east to relieve exhausted troops on the front line about 12 miles away. Suddenly, an explosive drone slammed into the truck’s rear, tearing off the axle and throwing the vehicle into the air.
The five soldiers scrambled out and sprinted toward the trees, wary of more drones.
“The enemy picks a stretch of road and turns it into a nightmare,” said a junior sergeant who was in the pickup when it was hit in the Donetsk region earlier this month. “Every vehicle that passes gets hit.”
In eastern Ukraine, supply roads have become nearly as dangerous as the trenches.
In recent months, Russia has begun employing new methods to extend the range of its attack drones and relentlessly target Ukrainian logistics in an effort to stop men and supplies from reaching the front. Roads 20 miles from the nearest Russian positions, which were long considered safe, are now coming under regular attack.
In targeting supply lines, Russian forces are hoping to isolate the remaining Ukrainian-held strongholds in the Donetsk region that they have been unable to seize in 3½ years of brutal assaults.
Kyiv is adapting, installing antidrone netting over supply routes, traveling at night and moving in smaller vehicles instead of trucks.
Still, Russia’s focus on taking out logistics is exacerbating the existing shortages—of everything from water to ammunition and, especially, manpower—along the front line, by making it even more challenging to move anything in or out of the trenches.
“A year ago, these kinds of strikes were episodic,” said Lt. Col. Dmytro Zaporozhets of Ukraine’s 11th Army Corps. “Now, we face systemic attack waves targeting logistics routes, depots, roads into towns, and evacuation roads.”
Both sides in the conflict have targeted supply lines throughout the war. In 2022, Ukraine pummeled Russian efforts to move materiel across the Dnipro River with American-made rockets, ultimately forcing Moscow to retreat from the regional capital of Kherson in the south.
More recently, explosive drones have made it nearly impossible to move men to front-line trenches in armored vehicles, which are easy targets. For more than a year, soldiers from both sides have mostly hiked the last few miles on foot, carrying supplies with them. Troop rotations have become so difficult that soldiers sometimes spend months in a position, because it isn’t possible to safely send in replacements.
Now, technological advances are allowing Russia to menace Ukrainian roads further from the front than in the past. Drones connected to their pilots by fiber-optic cables—which means they can’t be downed by electronic jammers—can now travel more than 12 miles beyond the front line.
In addition, Ukrainians troops said that Russian forces have begun using a new tactic in recent months: Heavy “mother ship” drones fly well beyond the line of control and release smaller explosive drones, which then attack Ukrainian vehicles. The mother ship also serves as a relay antenna, to keep the drones in contact with their pilots. Though 20 miles was already within artillery range, the drones are far more accurate, especially against moving targets, such as supply trucks.
Up until recently, the road that connected Izyum, in the northeastern Kharkiv region, to Slovyansk, in Donetsk, was considered safe, Ukrainian troops said. This month, however, the road has come under regular fire—including targeting civilian vehicles.
“Every month, the problem gets worse…the enemy can fly farther and in larger volumes,” said a senior lieutenant from the 225th Brigade. “They hit everything. They burn minibuses with people. They burn ordinary cars.”
Ukrainian officials say they are dealing with the new challenges, including by installing antidrone netting over key supply roads in Donetsk. In addition, Kyiv has retaken several villages there recently, according to officials and open-source channels. Ukrainian troops also say they are hitting Russian supply lines.
Still, the growing range of Russian drones is making life tougher for soldiers and civilians alike.
“Delays are constant now,” said a 38-year-old sergeant from a reconnaissance unit. “Sometimes a unit waits for ammo that should have been delivered a day earlier, and in the meantime they can’t operate at full strength. Evacuating the wounded is harder.”
The drone nets, he added, weren’t a permanent fix—Russian drones often try to hit poles that hold them up, collapsing the netting and instead turning it into an obstacle on the road.
“We constantly have to repair the damage” to the posts, said Vadym Filashkin, governor of the Donetsk region.
One 42-year-old medic, who goes by the call sign Buddha, says the condition of the roads near the front has severely deteriorated, complicating efforts to reach wounded soldiers and to keep them alive on the way out.
“You’re bouncing over holes, trying to give first aid while the car shakes like crazy,” he said. “There were times when we couldn’t get a needle into a vein because the car was throwing us around so hard. And we couldn’t slow down, because drones could hit us.”
The attacks are leaving civilians in eastern Ukraine short of supplies as well. Earlier this month, a drone also hit a market in Kramatorsk.
“It was terrible—the noise, the screams, the dust,” said Anna Babenkova, a 53-year-old saleswoman at the market. Just a day later, she said, the market was back in business, but getting products is becoming more difficult as suppliers are unwilling to brave the roads. “I don’t even know if we’ll get a delivery next week,” she said. “Drivers are afraid to come.”
Zaporozhets, the lieutenant colonel from the 11th Army Corps, said that, for now, Ukraine simply doesn’t have enough resources to protect supply lines across the entire front. Top-line systems, such as Israeli-made radars, cost millions of dollars each and cover only about 6 miles. Electronic jammers, he added, are also expensive and in short supply.
“With the lack of resources, we’re forced into firefighting mode,” he said.
Trump Invokes ‘Golden Share’ to Block U.S. Steel Plans for Illinois Plant
Commerce secretary told U.S. Steel CEO the administration wouldn’t allow Granite City production to cease
The Trump administration blocked U.S. Steel’s plan to halt production at its Granite City, Illinois, plant.
Trump used the ‘golden share authority’ from Nippon Steel’s takeover to veto the plant’s closing.
U.S. Steel reversed its decision, agreeing to continue operations at Granite City Works, rolling steel.
The Trump administration flexed its new authority over U.S. Steel, blocking the company’s plan to shut down production at an Illinois plant this fall.
Two weeks ago, U.S. Steel notified workers in Granite City, Ill., that plant operations would cease in November. The company, owned by Tokyo-based Nippon Steel 5401 0.00%increase; green up pointing triangle, said it would continue paying the mill’s nearly 800 employees, even without them doing regular production work.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick got wind of the plan and called U.S. Steel Chief Executive Dave Burritt, a person familiar with the matter said. Lutnick told Burritt the administration wouldn’t allow operations to cease, and the president would invoke his so-called golden share authority over plant operations.
The U.S. government cleared Nippon Steel’s $14.1 billion takeover of U.S. Steel in June after the company entered into a national-security agreement. Conditions of that agreement gave President Trump and future presidents the right to veto plant closings, the transfer of production out of the country and other changes in operations.
On Friday, U.S. Steel said it has reversed its plan and that Granite City Works would continue rolling steel slabs into sheet steel.
“Our goal was to maintain flexibility, and we are pleased to have found a solution to continue to slab consumption at Granite City,” the company said
The intervention shows the Trump administration’s growing influence in the private sector. Last month, Trump said the U.S. government would take a 10% stake in chip manufacturer Intel, which had received billions of dollars in grants via the 2022 Chips Act.
Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices separately agreed to pay the Trump administration a portion of sales from artificial-intelligence chips to China.
Union leaders had opposed the Japanese company’s purchase of U.S. Steel, warning that Nippon Steel could close plants and import foreign-made steel from its other plants. Nippon Steel said it was committed to improving U.S. Steel’s plants and pledged to invest an additional $14 billion in new equipment and repairs.
The United Steelworkers union, which represents Granite City’s hourly workers, had pushed back against U.S. Steel’s plan to transfer work typically done at the mill to other company plants. They described the move as a violation of Nippon Steel’s pledge to maintain production at U.S. Steel plants.
In the national-security agreement, Nippon Steel committed to operate U.S. Steel’s existing plants through 2035, and the Granite City plant into 2027.
“They have to operate the facilities at full capacity,” said Mike Millsap, a United Steelworkers regional director. “This is exactly the thing we were afraid of with Nippon Steel.”
Lutnick, in a recent interview on CNBC, described U.S. Steel’s plan to pay employees at a plant that isn’t operating as “nonsense.”
Trump’s interest in the Granite City mill stretches to his first term, when he repeatedly cited the plant as an example of the domestic steel industry’s recovery under his administration.
After Trump imposed tariffs on foreign steel in 2018, steel prices and sales soared. U.S. Steel recalled hundreds of laid-off workers to restart the plant’s two blast furnaces, which had been idle for more than two years because of low steel prices.
The Granite City mill has been operated for more than a century. But U.S. Steel has been whittling production in recent years.
The mill has the capacity to produce about three million tons of sheet steel annually, but U.S. Steel ended steel production in Granite City in late 2023. The company largely replaced that volume by doubling the capacity of its new Big River Steel plant in northeast Arkansas, about 250 miles south of Granite City.
Currently, the mill takes steel slabs produced at other U.S. Steel mills and rolls them into sheet steel.
A deal to keep production going at Granite City has been in limbo for more than three years. U.S. Steel in 2022 agreed to sell the blast furnaces to Illinois-based SunCoke Energy, which planned to produce pig iron for U.S. Steel’s Arkansas plant. The sale hasn’t been completed, facing opposition from the steelworkers union.
A SunCoke spokeswoman said discussions between the company and U.S. Steel are ongoing.
“We need a future,” said Craig McKey, president of United Steelworkers Local 1899 at Granite City. “Whatever they give us, we’re willing to do the work.”