Inside the GOP pressure campaign to flip Trump on Nippon Steel

President Donald Trump’s decision to approve the foreign sale of U.S. Steel, an American manufacturing icon, came after months of sustained pressure from a group of Rust Belt Republicans.

Advocates for the deal say the lobbying effort was crucial to the president’s reversal of his campaign pledge to block the nearly $15 billion sale, which he will formalize in a speech at the company’s Pittsburgh headquarters on Friday.

“That should have been a no-brainer, frankly, and lawmakers in Trump’s corner helped him see that,” said one former Republican official, who is in favor of the deal and familiar with the discussions at the White House.