What some Ivy League basketball players can tell us about labor unions over the next four years.

I'm David Brancaccio. First President Biden just now blocked a merger between U.S. steel and the Japanese firm Nippon Steel.

And with a change of administration coming, the tough road for foreign companies buying American ones could continue. Marketplaces Novosafo is here with more.

This decision, not a surprise, David, but still a sign of this continued shift in U.S. policy towards what many would call a more protectionist stance even before President Trump takes office.

And that's because this kind of presidential action to block a corporate acquisition

on national security grounds might have been expected, say, if say a Chinese company had tried to

purchase U.S. Steel, but this is Nippon, a company based in Japan, a major American ally.

Still, President Biden has been vocally opposed to the deal for some time, taking the site

of most of U.S. Steel's unionized

workforce, many of whom have opposed the idea of Nippon's takeover fearing job cuts.

And this morning, the president issued a statement saying, quote, this acquisition would

place one of America's largest steel producers under foreign control and create risk for our

national security and our critical supply chains.

And that's the reason, David, he said he's blocking the deal.

Now, while the Steelworkers Union has been adamantly against the merger, some rank-and-file members had written the White House urging the deal to go forward.

The union had reportedly scolded those members for allegedly getting bamboozled by the company,

but the deal is now done, done?

Yeah, there's been a lot of back and forth in this, but yes, the president's decision is the decisive one.

The bigger question now is what happens to U.S. Steel.

I mean, the big argument for this deal was that U.S. Steel needed an injection of investment.

Nipan was set to plan to contribute more than $2.5 billion in investments in manufacturing

facilities for U.S. Steel.

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