The absolute worst racist take on U.S. Steel

Cleveland-Cliffs CEO makes Charlottesville marchers look good.

I couldn’t believe it when I read what the CEO of Cleveland-Cliffs said. Then I saw it was true. “China is bad. China is evil. China is horrible. But Japan is worse. Japan is a lot worse,” Brazilian-born Lourenco Goncalves said. “Japan is evil.”

Not revealed., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

If optics could make this remark even worse, well you be the judge. Goncalves was speaking at Cleveland-Cliffs Butler Works plant, in Butler, Pennsylvania. That Butler, where a 20-year-old nearly killed Donald Trump, who in six days will be POTUS.

Some context for you.

Cleveland-Cliffs has been around since 1847, founded as a mining company. It has since sold or shuttered all its mines, but the company now operates iron and steel works. In 2023, Cleveland-Cliffs board of directors offered about $10 billion to purchase U.S. Steel, but was outbid by Nippon Steel. President Joe Biden, citing “national security” grounds, stopped the Nippon deal from going through.

The steelworkers’ union approved of the Cleveland-Cliffs deal, but the company’s history with unions is pockmarked. After the Civil War’s end in 1865, a U.S. Navy gunship and Army troops were used to put down a strike at its Marquette Iron Range in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Of course, Goncalves, the company’s current CEO, would know of this history. But Goncalves is from Brazil, put in place by the hedge fund that took over management in 2014. Casablanca Capital later sold its stake in Cleveland-Cliffs, and unwound itself after its founder, billionaire Donald Drapkin, died in a tragic skiing accident. Gonclaves would also know of the environmental damage done in violating the Clean Water Act in 2022, that cost a measly $3 million to settle.

And he’d know about the United States’ special relationship with Japan. But all of that aside, he called Japan evil seemingly because Nippon Steel had a deal with China’s Baoshan Iron & Steel, which is no longer in place. Of course, no comment on Cleveland-Cliffs acquisition of Consolidated Thompson Iron Mines in 2011 from Wuhan Iron and Steel. That happened before Goncalves watch. Still a hypocrite, no?

Cleveland-Cliffs is talking to steelmaker Nucor to once again buy U.S. Steel, if the deal with Nippon Steel becomes permanently dead, for a fraction of what Nippon offered. But that’s not what Goncalves said publicly in Butler.

“My last offer was $54 per share, and the Nippon Steel offer was $55 per share,” said Goncalves. “My number before the previous bid was $47.50, I went from $47.50 to $54. I don’t know what number was theirs but it was lower than mine and they miraculously went to $55. Do you guys smell a rat? I do.

The only rat I smell is the racist Brazilian kind who said this. Read it carefully, especially the part about 1945.

“Japan be aware, you don’t understand who you are, you did not learn anything since 1945,” said Goncalves. “You did not learn how good (the United States of America) are, how gracious we are, how magnanimous we are, how forgiving we are.”

I think Japan has, uniquely in the world, learned how good, how gracious, how magnanimous the United States is. No more needs to be said about that.

I also think that President Joe Biden, if he wasn’t protected by a halo of friendly press wanting his exit to remain unmarred by terrible, stupid, racist comments by the CEO of the company with the most to gain from Biden’s nixing of the Nippon Steel deal, would be smart to rethink his position.

For its part, the Japanese government has taken the high road in its response.

“Cleveland-Cliffs’ CEO continues to persist with biased stereotypes, but what his words cannot mask is that he cannot match the scope and scale of our plan,” Nippon Steel said in a Tuesday statement in response to Gonclaves’ remarks.

“We are focused on fighting for the people of the states in which U.S. Steel is operating, and we will continue to do whatever it takes to close our deal and secure their bright future,” the statement continued.

More actively, Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel have sued Cleveland-Cliffs for what they describe as an effort to collude with steelworker union leaders, and launching a “public smear campaign” and “trafficking in xenophobic stereotypes.” I think Goncalves’ remarks offer some powerful evidence in support of that accusation.

The terrible take stirred a bit of an international political pot, as Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba called President Joe Biden to ask for help to “dispel existing concerns” about xenophobic attitudes. Goncalves mocked his efforts.

“Wait seven more days and repeat the same demand to Donald J. Trump,” he said. “That would be a fun day in life for me.”

Goncalves is a world-class schmuck. Given the choice between him and the “fine people” who were in Charlottesville in 2017, it would be a difficult decision to pick who is worse.

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