Issue:
August 2024
How Trump loyalist Mike Pompeo promotes Nippon Steel and the Moonies
Large Japanese corporations are famously shy of public controversy, yet Nippon Steel seems willing to engage in the equivalent of a bareknuckle brawl. In a bid to secure political backing for its audacious $14.9 billion takeover of U.S. Steel, a company long integral to the building and defence of America, Nippon Steel has hired Donald Trump’s former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.
Amid one of the most rancorous and consequential presidential election battles ever seen, the appointment of a Trump loyalist as a Nippon Steel adviser is contentious enough, but to this must be added the prospect of raising Japanese hackles over his close ties to the Unification Church.
Since leaving office in January 2021, Pompeo has been a frequent speaker at events hosted by the Korean cult, lauding its global activities and echoing its claims to be a victim of religious persecution and communist conspiracy.
Five months after the July 2022 assassination of Shinzō Abe by the son of a Unification Church follower, Pompeo addressed the Second Conference of Hope for the Realisation of a Heavenly Unified World at the cult’s headquarters in South Korea.
“In the wake of the tragic assassination of Prime Minister Abe, the Japanese Communist Party has been attacking the Unification Church. The JCP has alleged the church is engaged in corruption and is a threat to society and that it undermines Japan's interests. Nothing could be further from the truth. We must not allow this to happen,” Pompeo said, according to a Unification Church transcript.
Pompeo’s staunch defence goes against the findings of a yearlong investigation by the government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida into thousands of allegations of social harm caused by the Unification Church and its offshoots, particularly through predatory and fraudulent fundraising. In October 2023, the government concluded that the Japanese branch of the cult was an antisocial organisation and sought a court order for its dissolution.
Five months previously, Pompeo had heaped praise on Hak Ja Han Moon, the widow of cult founder Moon Sun Myung, in an address to the cult’s Peace Summit 2023 in Seoul:
“I’d like to begin by recognizing the work of Dr. Moon. Her tireless work to promote religious freedom has been a blessing to so many. Bless you, madame, and we congratulate you on this wonderful occasion in which we are celebrating your 80th birthday.”
Payments that Pompeo presumably received from the Unification Church in speaking fees and travel expenses have not been revealed. Since Pompeo has not stood for public office since 2021, he has not been obliged to make such disclosures to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. Trump stated last year that he had been paid $2 million for speaking at two events hosted by the Universal Peace Federation and Hak Ja Han.
A fervent evangelical Christian, Pompeo has never explained how he reconciles his own faith with support for the Unification Church. Christian theologians have tended to denounce its principal tenets as abominable heresy. Followers of Moon believe he was the “Second Messiah”, who fulfilled the divine mission through procreation, after Jesus “failed” to marry and have children.
White evangelical Christians like Pompeo are a strong force in the Republican Party backing Trump for the U.S. presidency. In a July 26 speech to Christian audience, Trump implied that he would end elections in the United States if won a second term.
“Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. … You got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote,” he said.
The union vote
While U.S. Steel shareholders have approved the Nippon Steel acquisition, it has been strongly opposed by the United Steelworkers (USW) union, whose leaders fear steel closures and job losses, as well as by U.S. Steel’s main rival, Cleveland-Cliffs.
U.S. Steel’s starring role in American history combines with voting geography to politicise the issue. The company is based in Pennsylvania, one of seven ‘swing states’ where Democrats and Republicans are fiercely competing for union votes. Michigan, another battleground state where the outcome of November’s election could be decided, has two U.S. Steel plants.
In January, 53 members of the House of Representatives sent a bipartisan letter to President Joe Biden, urging a full review of the deal, and in April, the Department of Justice launched an in-depth investigation.
Biden has sided with the USW, saying that U.S. Steel should remain “American-owned,” while Trump has promised to stop the takeover “instantaneously”.
Pompeo’s choice as Nippon Steel’s chief American lobbyist was first reported by Bloomberg on 20 July, the day before Biden bowed out of the race and endorsed vice president Kamala Harris to run against Trump. Until then, evidence of Biden’s dotage was buoying the Republicans and Trump was riding high in the opinion polls. The Republican National Convention in Milwaukee had sealed the nominations of Trump and his running mate JD Vance in a carnival atmosphere that was half coronation, half religious revival. Pompeo told Republican delegates of his “great honour” to have worked with Trump.
The anointment of Harris as candidate-presumptive for the Democrats immediately broke a donor strike and money flooded into her campaign. Within days, the national opinion pendulum swung in her favour, erasing Trump’s lead. Had Nippon Steel bet on the wrong horse?
The business case
Nippon Steel makes a persuasive case for acquiring U.S. Steel. Even the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which portrays itself as the brains trust behind a Trump second term, favours the proposed Japanese “infusion of cash, technology, and vision” into the shrunken behemoth of Pittsburgh. However, if the USW can be placated, Nippon Steel’s plan looks more compatible with Harris as U.S. president than Trump.
The Inflation Reduction Act of the Biden-Harris administration, which provides $369 billion in subsidies for American production, including incentives for clean energy and electric vehicles, has been a powerful draw for Nippon Steel. Behind high tariff walls against Chinese imports, the IRA has encouraged nearly $200 billion in electric vehicle and EV battery production in the United States. “There’s not a company in the US that can domestically produce the high-end, electrical steel sheets for automobiles which we produce at our steel mills in Japan,” Nippon Steel President Tadashi Imai told Bloomberg. Nippon Steel also touts its new hydrogen technology for reducing carbon emissions from steelmaking.
The record of Harris shows she is even greener than Biden, opposed to fracking and offshore drilling, and in favour of making “polluters pay for emitting greenhouse gases into our atmosphere”.
Bankrolled by the fossil fuel industry, Trump sums up his approach to energy as “Drill, baby, drill.” He plans to ask Congress to repeal much of the IRA and wants to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement to cut emissions. Targets for electric vehicle use will be scrapped.
All of this makes one wonder, why appoint a Trump devotee to lobby for the takeover of U.S. Steel? This was one of several written questions submitted to Nippon Steel. The company declined to answer any of them.
Peter McGill is a UK-based writer. A former Tokyo correspondent of the Observer, he was the youngest-ever president of the FCCJ.
