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U.S. Steel Acquisition Proposal Tests Biden’s Industrial Policy

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The president is under pressure from Democrats and Republicans to block the sale to Japan’s Nippon Steel, which could upset a key foreign ally.U.S. Steel is an iconic example of the lost manufacturing muscle that President Biden says his economic policies will bring back to the United States.But last month, the storied-but-diminished company announced plans to be acquired by a Japanese competitor. That development has put Mr. Biden in an awkward bind as he tries to balance attempts to revitalize the nation’s industrial sector with his efforts to rebuild international alliances.Mr. Biden’s administration has expressed some discomfort with the deal and is reviewing the proposed $14.1 billion takeover bid by Japan’s Nippon Steel. The company is offering a hefty premium for U.S. Steel, which has struggled to compete against a flood of cheap foreign metal and has been weighing takeover offers for several months.The proposal has quickly become a high-profile example of the difficult political choices Mr. Biden faces in his zeal to revive American industry, one that could test the degree to which he is willing to flex presidential power in pursuit of what is arguably his primary economic goal: the creation and retention of high-paying union manufacturing jobs in the United States.Mr. Biden is under pressure from the United Steelworkers union and populist senators from both parties, including Democrats defending crucial swing seats in Ohio and Pennsylvania this fall, to nix the sale on national security grounds. The senators contend that domestically owned steel production is critical to U.S. manufacturing and supply chains. They have warned that a foreign owner could be more likely to move U.S. Steel jobs and production overseas.“This really should be a no-brainer,” Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, said in an interview last week. “I don’t know why it would be difficult to say, my gosh, we’ve got to maintain steel production in this country, and particularly a company like this one, where you have thousands of workers in good union jobs.”U.S. Steel executives say the deal would benefit workers and give the merged companies “world-leading capabilities” in steel production. They announced last month that Nippon Steel had agreed to keep the company’s headquarters in Pittsburgh and to honor the four-year collective bargaining agreement that the steelworkers’ union ratified in December 2022.Other supporters of the takeover bid say blocking the sale risks angering a key American ally. Mr. Biden has courted Japanese collaboration on a wide range of issues, including efforts to counter Chinese manufacturing in clean energy and other emerging technologies, and welcomed Japanese investment in new American manufacturing facilities including for advanced batteries.Wilbur Ross, a former steel company executive who served as commerce secretary under President Donald J. Trump, wrote last week in The Wall Street Journal that there is “nothing in the deal from which the U.S. needs defending. Attacks by Washington pols only create unnecessary geopolitical tensions, and those, not the acquisition itself, could endanger American national security.”Adding to the cross-pressures on Mr. Biden: It is unclear what would happen to the 123-year-old U.S. Steel if the administration scuttles the deal and whether doing so would actually guarantee greater job security for the company’s nearly 15,000 North American employees.U.S. Steel executives say the deal with Nippon Steel would benefit workers, but skeptics of the deal are urging President Biden to review it to prevent lost steel production and jobs.Lawrence Bryant/ReutersU.S. Steel has faced challenges for decades because of intensifying foreign competition, particularly from China, which has flooded the global market with cheap, state-subsidized steel. American presidents have spent years trying to bolster and protect domestic steel makers through a mix of subsidies, import restrictions and so-called Buy America requirements for government purchases.“No U.S. industry has benefited more from protection than the steel industry,” Scott Lincicome, a trade policy expert at the libertarian Cato Institute think tank, wrote in a 2017 research paper.In recent years, presidents have increased those protections further. Mr. Trump imposed tariffs on imported steel, including from Japan. Mr. Biden has partially rolled back those levies in an attempt to rebuild alliances. Mr. Biden also included strict Buy America provisions in sweeping new laws to invest in infrastructure, clean energy and other advanced manufacturing.Those efforts have not come close to bringing back the levels of domestic steel production that the United States enjoyed in the 1970s — or even of recent decades. Raw steel production reached higher levels under Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama than it has under Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump.Employment in the industry fell steadily in the 1990s and mid-2000s. In 2022, there were just over 83,000 workers in iron and steel mills in the United States, which was less than half the number from 1992.Senators including Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, both Democrats, and Mr. Hawley and J.D. Vance of Ohio, both Republicans, urged Mr. Biden to review the proposed U.S. Steel sale to guard against lost steel production and jobs. Mr. Brown cited Nippon Steel’s failure to notify or consult with union leaders ahead of making its bid for the company.“Tens of thousands of Americans, including many Ohioans, rely on this industry for good-paying, middle-class jobs,” he wrote in a letter to Mr. Biden last month. “These workers deserve to work for a company that invests in its employees and not only honors their right to join a union, but respects and collaborates with its work force.”The calls for an administrative review of the deal largely focused on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which is known as CFIUS and headed by Janet L. Yellen, the Treasury secretary. The committee scrutinizes possible sales of American firms to foreign ones for possible national security threats, then issues recommendations to the president, who can suspend or block a deal.Shortly before Christmas, Mr. Biden appeared to grant the request for review, while stopping short of saying he would block it.Lael Brainard, who chairs the White House National Economic Council, said in a news release that Mr. Biden welcomed foreign investment in American manufacturing but “believes the purchase of this iconic American-owned company by a foreign entity — even one from a close ally — appears to deserve serious scrutiny in terms of its potential impact on national security and supply chain reliability.”The administration, Ms. Brainard said, “will be ready to look carefully at the findings of any such investigation and to act if appropriate.”Steelworkers cheered the move. David McCall, president of United Steelworkers International, said in a statement that Mr. Biden was “demonstrating once again the president’s unwavering commitment to domestic workers and industries.”Independent experts say it would be well within historical norms for the committee to evaluate the sale. That will likely include a detailed economic analysis of whether the deal could lead to diminished steel production capacity in the United States, said Emily Kilcrease, a CFIUS expert and senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.But Ms. Kilcrease said that based on the committee’s past decisions, she expected the review to stop well short of a recommendation to kill the sale. Instead, she said, CFIUS might require an agreement from Nippon Steel to maintain certain levels of U.S. employment or production as a condition of the sale’s going through.“I would be shocked if this deal got blocked,” she said.Mr. Hawley said the choice was ultimately Mr. Biden’s — and a test of his commitment to the industry.“If the administration wants to block the sale, they absolutely have grounds to do it and the legal authority,” he said. “So it’s just a question of, do they want to? And will they have the guts to do it?” More

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    How Washington Decided to Rescue Silicon Valley Bank

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    Officials were initially unsure about the need for the measures they eventually announced to shore up the financial system, but changed their minds quickly.WASHINGTON — On Friday afternoon, the deputy Treasury secretary, Wally Adeyemo, met with Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Company, at Mr. Dimon’s office in New York.The Biden administration and the Federal Reserve were considering what would be the most aggressive emergency intervention in the banking system since the 2008 financial crisis, and the question the two men debated was at the heart of that decision.Could the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, the mega start-up lender that had just collapsed, spread to other banks and create a systemic risk to the financial system?“There’s potential,” Mr. Dimon said, according to people familiar with the conversation.Mr. Adeyemo was one of many administration officials who entered last weekend unsure of whether the federal government needed to explicitly rescue Silicon Valley Bank’s depositors before markets opened on Monday morning.In the White House and the Treasury, some officials initially saw the bank’s swift plunge to insolvency as unlikely to spark an economic crisis — particularly if the government could facilitate a sale of the bank to another financial institution.They quickly changed their minds after signs of nascent bank runs across the country — and direct appeals from small businesses and lawmakers from both parties — convinced them the bank’s problems could imperil the entire financial system, not just rich investors in Silicon Valley.On Friday morning, aides met with President Biden in the Oval Office, where they warned that the panic engulfing Silicon Valley Bank could spread to other financial institutions, according to a White House official. Mr. Biden told them to keep him updated on developments.By Friday afternoon, before financial markets had even closed, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation had stepped in and shut down the bank.Still, the kind of rescue that the United States ultimately engineered would not materialize publicly until Sunday, after intense deliberations across the government.This account is based on interviews with current and former officials in the White House, Treasury and the Fed; financial services executives; members of Congress; and others. All were involved or close to the discussions that dominated Washington over a frenzied process that began Thursday evening and ended 72 hours later with an extraordinary announcement timed to beat the opening of financial markets in Asia.The episode was a test for the president — who risked criticism from the left and the right by greenlighting what critics called a bailout for banks. It also confronted Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen with the prospect of a banking crisis at a moment when she had become more optimistic that a recession could be avoided. And it was the starkest demonstration to date of the impact that the Fed’s aggressive interest rate increases were having on the economy.Wally Adeyemo, deputy Treasury secretary, was initially unsure whether the government would need to intervene to rescue Silicon Valley Bank’s depositors. Andrew Harnik/Associated PressSilicon Valley Bank failed because it had put a large share of customer deposits into long-dated Treasury bonds and mortgage bonds that promised modest, steady returns when interest rates were low. As inflation jumped and the Fed lifted interest rates from near zero to above 4.5 percent to fight it over the last year, the value of those assets eroded. The bank essentially ran out of money to make good on what it owed to its depositors.By Thursday, concern was growing at the Federal Reserve. The bank had turned to the Fed to borrow money through the central bank’s “discount window” that day, but it soon became clear that was not going to be enough to forestall a collapse.Officials including Jerome H. Powell, chairman of the Fed, and Michael S. Barr, its vice chair for supervision, worked through Thursday night and into Friday morning to try to find a solution to the bank’s unraveling. By Friday, Fed officials feared the bank’s failure could pose sweeping risks to the financial system.Compounding the worry: The prospects of arranging a quick sale to another bank in order to keep depositors whole dimmed through the weekend. A range of firms nibbled around the idea of purchasing it — including some of the largest and most systemically important.One large regional bank, PNC, tiptoed toward making an acceptable offer. But that deal fell through as the bank scrambled to scrub Silicon Valley Bank’s books and failed to get enough assurances from the government that it would be protected from risks, according to a person briefed on the matter.A dramatic government intervention seemed unlikely on Thursday evening, when Peter Orszag, former President Barack Obama’s first budget director and now chief executive of financial advisory at the bank Lazard, hosted a previously scheduled dinner at the bank’s offices in New York City’s Rockefeller Center..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Among those in attendance were Mr. Adeyemo and a pair of influential senators: Michael D. Crapo, Republican of Idaho, and Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia. Both were sponsors of a 2018 law that rolled back regulation on smaller banks that critics now say left Silicon Valley Bank vulnerable.Blair Effron, a large Democratic donor who had just been hired by Silicon Valley Bank to advise it on its liquidity crunch, was also there. Earlier that day, the bank had attempted to raise money to stave off collapse with the help of Goldman Sachs — an effort that, by Thursday evening, had clearly failed.The Federal Reserve ultimately opened a lending program to help keep money flowing through the banking system.Al Drago for The New York TimesMr. Effron and Mr. Adeyemo spoke as it became evident that Silicon Valley Bank was running out of options and that a sale — or some bigger intervention — might be necessary. Jeffrey Zients, Mr. Biden’s new chief of staff, and Lael Brainard, the new director of his National Economic Council, were also being pelted by warnings about the bank’s threat to the economy. As Silicon Valley Bank’s depositors raced to withdraw their money on Thursday, sending its stock into free fall, both Ms. Brainard and Mr. Zients began receiving a flurry of calls and texts from worried leaders in the start-up community that the bank heavily served.Ms. Brainard, who had experienced financial crises in other countries while serving in Mr. Obama’s Treasury Department and as a Federal Reserve Board member, had begun to worry about a new crisis emanating from SVB’s failure. She and Mr. Zients raised that possibility with Mr. Biden when they briefed him in the Oval Office on Friday morning.Other officials across the administration were more skeptical, worrying that the lobbying blitz Ms. Brainard and others were receiving was purely a sign of wealthy investors trying to force the government to backstop their losses. And there were concerns that any kind of government action could be seen as bailing out a bank that had mismanaged its risk, potentially encouraging risky behavior by other banks in the future.Ms. Brainard started fielding anxious calls again on Saturday morning and did not stop until late in the evening. She and Mr. Zients briefed Mr. Biden that afternoon — virtually this time, because the president was spending the weekend in his home state of Delaware.Mr. Biden also spoke Saturday with Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, who was pushing aggressively for government intervention in fear that a wide range of companies in his state would otherwise not be able to pay employees or other operational costs on Monday morning.Concerns mounted that day as regulators reviewed data that showed deposit outflows increasing at regional banks nationwide — a likely sign of systemic risk. They began pursuing two possible sets of policy actions, ideally a buyer for the bank. Without that option, they would need to seek a “systemic risk exception” to allow the F.D.I.C. to insure all of the bank’s deposits. To calm jittery investors, they surmised that a Fed lending facility would also be needed to buttress regional banks more broadly.“Because of the actions that our regulators have already taken, every American should feel confident that their deposits will be there if and when they need them,” President Biden said on Monday.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMs. Yellen on Saturday convened top officials — Mr. Powell, Mr. Barr and Martin J. Gruenberg, the chairman of the F.D.I.C.’s board of directors — to figure out what to do. The Treasury secretary was fielding back-to-back calls on Zoom from officials and executives and at one point described what she was hearing about the banking sector as hair-raising.F.D.I.C. officials initially conveyed reservations about their authority to back deposits that were not insured, raising concerns among those who were briefed by the F.D.I.C. that a rescue could come too late.By Saturday night, anxiety that the Biden administration was dragging its feet was bubbling over among California lawmakers.At the glitzy Gridiron Club Dinner in Washington, Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, cornered Steve Ricchetti, a top White House aide and close adviser to the president, and urged Mr. Biden and his team to be decisive. He warned that many of Mr. Biden’s major achievements would be washed away if the banking system melted down.“I said, Steve, this is a massive issue not just for Silicon Valley, but for regional banks around America,” Mr. Khanna said, adding that Mr. Ricchetti replied: “I get it.”Privately, it was becoming clear to Mr. Biden’s economic team that banking customers were getting spooked. On Saturday evening, officials from the Treasury, the White House and the Fed tentatively agreed to two bold moves they finalized and announced late on Sunday afternoon: The government would ensure that all depositors would be repaid in full, and the Fed would offer a program providing attractive loans to other financial institutions in hopes of avoid a cascading series of bank failures.But administration officials wanted to ensure the rescue had limits. The focus, according to a person familiar with the conversation, was ensuring that businesses around the country would be able to pay their employees on Monday and that no taxpayer money would be used by tapping the F.D.I.C.’s Deposit Insurance Fund.It was a priority that the rescue not be viewed as a bailout, which had become a toxic word in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The depositors would be protected, but the bank’s management and its investors would not.By Sunday morning, regulators were putting the finishing touches on the rescue package and preparing to brief Congress. Ms. Yellen, in consultation with the president, approved the “systemic risk exception” that would protect all of the bank’s deposits. The bipartisan members of the Federal Reserve and the F.D.I.C. voted unanimously to approve the decision.That evening, they announced a plan to make sure all depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and another large failed financial institution, Signature Bank, were repaid in full. The Fed also said it would offer banks loans against their Treasury and many other asset holdings, whose values had eroded.“Because of the actions that our regulators have already taken, every American should feel confident that their deposits will be there if and when they need them,” Mr. Biden said during brief remarks at the White House.By Tuesday afternoon the intervention was showing signs of working. Regional bank stocks, which had fallen on Monday, had partially rebounded. The outflow of deposits from regional banks had slowed. And banks were pledging collateral at the Fed’s new loan program, which would put them in a position to use it if they decided that doing so was necessary.The financial system appeared to have stabilized, at least for the moment. More

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    Brian Deese, Top Economic Aide to Biden, Will Step Down

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    Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council, played a pivotal role in negotiating economic legislation the president signed in his first two years in office.WASHINGTON — Brian Deese, who served as President Biden’s top economic adviser and helped create and negotiate the sweeping economic legislation that Mr. Biden signed into law in his first two years in office, will leave his position in mid-February.Mr. Biden announced the departure on Thursday, saying Mr. Deese’s work as director of the National Economic Council was crucial to the country’s economic recovery.“Brian has a unique ability to translate complex policy challenges into concrete actions that improve the lives of American people,” Mr. Biden said.The move is the latest high-level departure from the administration as Mr. Biden hits the two-year mark in his presidency and Republicans take control in the House. On Wednesday, Ron Klain, who has known Mr. Biden for more than three decades, stepped down as the White House chief of staff.The turnover comes as Mr. Biden is at something of a policy inflection point, shifting focus from passing laws to carrying them out.Mr. Deese, 44, helped to shape some of Mr. Biden’s most sweeping economic successes, including a $1.9 trillion aid package to help pull the nation from the pandemic recession, bipartisan measures to invest in infrastructure, and an energy, tax and health care measure that was the largest federal effort in history to combat climate change.But his legacy will include the high inflation that plagued the economy last year, which economists attribute in some part to spending from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. It will also include assembling the most diverse staff in terms of race and gender in the council’s history.The Biden PresidencyHere’s where the president stands as the third year of his term begins.State of the Union: President Biden will deliver his second State of the Union speech on Feb. 7, at a time when he faces an aggressive House controlled by Republicans and a special counsel investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information.Chief of Staff: Mr. Biden named Jeffrey D. Zients, his former coronavirus response coordinator, as his next chief of staff. Mr. Zients replaces Ron Klain, who has run the White House since the president took office.Eyeing 2024: Mr. Biden has been assailing House Republicans over their tax and spending plans, including potential changes to Social Security and Medicare, as he ramps up for what is likely to be a run for re-election.Mr. Deese hosted weekly breakfasts or lunches with Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen; Cecilia Rouse, the chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers; and Shalanda Young, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.Perhaps the sharpest criticism Mr. Deese faced as director was when he was appointed, from liberal groups wary of his previous job at the Wall Street giant BlackRock. Those criticisms have quieted somewhat as liberals applauded the climate bill and other legislation.“We were very skeptical of Deese’s decision to go to BlackRock and what that portended,” said Jeff Hauser, the director of the liberal Revolving Door Project. “He has worked out surprisingly well.”Mr. Deese’s departure was long planned. He has been commuting since late last summer from New England, where his wife and children live, to Washington. He does not yet have a new job lined up..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.The president has not decided on his successor. People familiar with the search process say Lael Brainard, the vice chair of the Federal Reserve, and Wally Adeyemo, the deputy Treasury secretary, appear to be the leading candidates for the job. Other contenders include Bharat Ramamurti, a deputy on the National Economic Council; Gene Sperling, a former director of the council under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama; and Sylvia M. Burwell, a former Obama aide who is now the president of American University.With Mr. Deese’s departure, his allies and colleagues say, Mr. Biden is losing the first and last person he consulted on economic issues and a driving force behind his domestic policy legacy.Ms. Rouse called Mr. Deese “an amazing partner as we navigated the rather choppy economic waters over the past two years.”Mr. Deese worked on the National Economic Council in the Obama White House, where he helped coordinate a bailout of the auto industry and negotiate a landmark international climate treaty in Paris. He joined Mr. Biden’s presidential campaign relatively late; along with Jake Sullivan, who is now the national security adviser, Mr. Deese helped to fashion a campaign platform that sought to curb global warming by investing heavily in new technologies that could help lower greenhouse gas emissions, like electric vehicles.Shortly after Mr. Biden was elected, Mr. Deese and colleagues on the presidential transition team began drafting what would become the American Rescue Plan. The week it passed the House, in mid-March, Mr. Deese and other aides huddled with Mr. Biden in the Oval Office to discuss the rest of the president’s plans for economic legislation.Mr. Deese urged the president to go big, maintaining the cost and ambition of the sweeping expansion of government in the economy that Mr. Biden had promised in the campaign. He prevailed: Mr. Biden later announced a $4 trillion economic agenda.Mr. Deese helped push that agenda through Congress by building relationships with swing-vote Democrats and moderate Republicans. He and a top Biden aide, Steven J. Ricchetti, camped out in the office of Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, in the waning days of negotiations over the infrastructure bill. Surrounded by Ohio sports jerseys, sustained by ordered-in salads, they hammered out the final details of what became Mr. Biden’s first big bipartisan win.Senators in those negotiations praised Mr. Deese for responding frankly to their concerns, in language that explained how legislative tweaks would affect people and businesses in the country.“Economists can — they can put you to sleep, and they talk, and when they get done, you don’t know what the hell you’ve heard,” Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, said in an interview. “That isn’t the case with Deese.”Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana and a key negotiator in the infrastructure talks, said that Mr. Deese was “a good poker player, and he’s a good negotiator. But once the commitment was made, I trusted that the commitment would be fulfilled.”Mr. Deese brought more climate expertise to the National Economic Council than any previous director, and it was on that issue that his congressional relationships paid the biggest dividends for Mr. Biden. In July, after months of negotiations, Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia and a key swing vote, signaled to Democratic leaders that he could not support the climate bill Mr. Deese had helped fashion, apparently dooming the effort.But the following Monday, Mr. Manchin called Mr. Deese, with whom he had built a close relationship, including a zip-lining trip together. Mr. Manchin told Mr. Deese he still wanted to find agreement on a bill and invited him to the Capitol to continue talks that also included Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader.Mr. Deese barely slept for the next week, colleagues say, as the negotiations wore on in secret and ultimately produced the Inflation Reduction Act. More

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    Biden Expected to Name Top Economic Officials This Week

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    WASHINGTON — President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is expected to name top members of his economic team this week, including Cecilia Rouse, a Princeton labor economist, to run the Council of Economic Advisers, and Neera Tanden, the chief executive of the Center for American Progress, to lead the Office of Management and Budget, according to people familiar with the matter.The announcement — which will include Mr. Biden’s decision to name Janet L. Yellen, the former Federal Reserve chair, as Treasury secretary — will culminate in several women in top economic roles, including the first Black woman to lead the Council of Economic Advisers. All three jobs require Senate confirmation.With the picks, Mr. Biden is showcasing a commitment to diversity in his advisers and sending a clear message that economic policymaking in his administration will be shaped by liberal thinkers with a strong focus on worker empowerment as a tool for economic growth.Two of Mr. Biden’s top economic aides during his presidential campaign, Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey, will also be named to the Council of Economic Advisers, which is a three-member team that advises the president on economic policy. Both Ms. Boushey and Mr. Bernstein come from a liberal, labor-oriented school of economics that views rising inequality as a threat to the economy and emphasizes government efforts to support and empower workers.In many ways, his team is unified by a commitment to running the economy hot — with strong growth and low unemployment — in order to drive up wages. And it is likely to signal an embrace of spending to help workers, businesses and local governments recover from the pandemic recession, regardless of the effect on the federal budget deficit.“President Biden’s appointments show that he is quadrupling down on his commitment to working people and raising wages,” said Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and the former head of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama. “He has appointed four of the best labor market economists in the country to head the Treasury and the Council of Economic Advisers.”In addition to those roles, Mr. Biden is expected to name Adewale Adeyemo, a senior international economic adviser in the Obama administration, as deputy Treasury secretary.Mr. Biden has also selected Brian Deese, a former Obama economic aide who helped lead that administration’s efforts to bail out the American automotive industry, to lead the National Economic Council, according to three people with knowledge of the selection.Mr. Deese, 42, is not an academic economist but a veteran of economic policymaking, having served as the acting head of the Office of Management and Budget and the deputy director of the Economic Council under Mr. Obama. He was also a special adviser on climate change to Mr. Obama, a role that could signal Mr. Biden’s commitment to fashioning an infrastructure bill for his legislative agenda that heavily features spending on clean energy initiatives.Mr. Biden on Sunday announced an all-female White House communications staff, with Jennifer Psaki, a veteran of the Obama administration, in the most visible role as White House press secretary.Kate Bedingfield, 39, who served as a deputy campaign manager for Mr. Biden, will serve as the White House communications director. Karine Jean Pierre, who previously served as the chief public affairs officer for MoveOn.org, will be the principal deputy press secretary. Pili Tobar, a former immigrant advocate with the group America’s Voice, will serve as the deputy White House communications director.Symone Sanders, a senior adviser to Mr. Biden on the campaign, will serve as the senior adviser and chief spokeswoman for Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Ashley Etienne, a former senior adviser to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will serve as the communications director for Ms. Harris.The appointments indicate Mr. Biden’s plan to include racial, gender and ideological diversity in top roles, fulfilling a campaign pledge to ensure that a broad swath of America is represented in policymaking decisions.But they could fall short of hopes within the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which has been frustrated that their views are not being sufficiently represented in early personnel decisions. In particular, the decision to select Ms. Tanden, a divisive and partisan figure in the Democratic Party, could culminate in an intraparty fight, as well as a confirmation battle.Republicans, who are expected to retain control of the Senate, are unlikely to easily pass Ms. Tanden, an Indian-American who advised Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and has been one of the most outspoken critics of President Trump.The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesUpdated Nov. 29, 2020, 6:35 p.m. ETBiden names all-female communications team with Jen Psaki as press secretary.Biden sees orthopedic doctor after spraining his ankle while playing with family dog.Biden team wants to tackle child care, elder care, preschool in one overarching plan.She also faces a challenge from Senate Democrats given her role in the 2016 election: Many of those who worked for Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who ran against Mrs. Clinton, remain convinced that Ms. Tanden was part of a group of Democrats working behind the scenes to scuttle his nomination.Mr. Sanders, who ran against — and ultimately endorsed — Mr. Biden, is the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, which vets the director of the Office of Management and Budget, putting the fate of Ms. Tanden’s nomination under his watch.Josh Holmes, a former chief of staff to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, referred to Ms. Tanden on Twitter on Sunday as a “sacrifice to the confirmation gods,” suggesting that her downfall would sate Republican anger toward Mr. Biden’s presidency and allow other nominees to more easily win confirmation.Drew Brandewie, a spokesman for Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said on Twitter on Sunday evening that Ms. Tanden “stands zero chance of being confirmed.”The selection of Ms. Tanden, who was involved in the development of the Affordable Care Act as an adviser to the Department of Health and Human Services during the Obama administration, is likely to resurface questions about the funding of the Center for American Progress. The New York Times reported last year that from 2016 through 2018, the center accepted nearly $2.5 million from the United Arab Emirates to fund its National Security and International Policy initiative.In addition, hacked emails from Ms. Tanden that were released through WikiLeaks in 2016 could also provide additional fodder for her critics.Mr. Biden’s other picks are most likely less contentious. Ms. Rouse, a labor economist, worked on Mr. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2009 to 2011 and at the White House’s National Economic Council during the Clinton administration in the late 1990s.Claudia Goldin, a Harvard economist, a pioneer in research on the role of women in the American economy and one of Ms. Rouse’s thesis advisers in graduate school, called her a leading expert on labor markets and education.“She is a deeply thoughtful person and a superb listener who brings out the best of those around her,” Ms. Goldin said.Mr. Bernstein was Mr. Biden’s first chief economist when he was vice president and has written extensively on the power of low unemployment and strong economic growth to bolster workers and wages. Ms. Boushey runs the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a liberal think tank focused on inequality, and was a top policy adviser to Mrs. Clinton in 2016. She has focused much of her research and writing on government initiatives meant to increase women’s participation in the labor force, such as paid leave programs.The appointments drew praise from Kevin A. Hassett, Mr. Trump’s first Council of Economic Advisers chairman.“They have put together a very strong team of experienced policymakers and smart economists,” Mr. Hassett said. “At this difficult time, it is great to know that a strong C.E.A. will be helping to guide policy.”Mr. Adeyemo is an immigrant from Nigeria and has extensive experience working at the Treasury Department during the Obama administration, when he was a senior adviser and deputy chief of staff. Mr. Adeyemo was also Mr. Obama’s chief negotiator for the macroeconomic policy provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Democrats ultimately opposed, and served as the first chief of staff of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. After a two-year stint as a senior adviser at BlackRock, he joined the Obama Foundation in 2019 as its president.Michael D. Shear and Jeanna Smialek contributed reporting. More