A Year After Buying US Steel, Nippon Steel Says Growth Lies Only Abroad
- Nippon Steel's acquisition of US Steel reached its one-year mark
- Vice chair Mori said growth must be sought overseas despite geopolitical risk
- It reflects a mature home market pushing steelmakers to expand abroad
- Japanese and Taiwanese firms share the 'peak at home, grow abroad' challenge
One year after acquiring US Steel, Nippon Steel's vice chair Mori said that even amid sharpening geopolitical risk, growth can only be sought abroad — capturing the structural anxiety of Japan's big manufacturers facing a shrinking, maturing home market. The line resonates in Taiwan, which shares Japan's demographic ceiling, making overseas growth a common imperative. But the year also revealed the cost: cross-border M&A must absorb geopolitics, protectionism and integration risk, with the US Steel deal itself caught in American politics. For Taiwanese manufacturers, the practical lesson is that expanding abroad is unavoidable — but figuring out where to go and how to bear geopolitical risk is harder, and more decisive, than deciding whether to go.