From the New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisie, and this is the Daily.

In a highly unusual move last week, the Biden administration signaled that it would block a

Japanese company from buying an iconic American company in a critical swing state today.

My colleague Alan Rappapour,

on the politics that could do a multi-billion dollar deal

and what it says about the new power of American labor.

It's Thursday, September 12th. So Alan, there's been this really interesting standoff over the potential acquisition of

U.S. Steel. And now the sale is in jeopardy.

So help us understand why this is important.

Well, there's a really fascinating dynamic going on here.

We have a historic American company that was once the largest company in the whole United States.

And now it's on the brink of being bought by a Japanese company called Nippon Steel.

And so a lot of people, including workers, the union, lawmakers are not happy about this at all.

And last week we got word that President Biden was actually preparing to go ahead and block the steel,

which in a lot of ways was pretty surprising.

And why is that surprising?

Normally presidents don't go ahead and interfere in foreign acquisitions like this,

especially ones that are between a U.S. company and countries that are allies.

But as we all know, we're in an election year and this is not a normal year.

So the potential to block this deal is really about a lot more than just the company

US Steel.

The company's located in Pennsylvania,

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