| President Joe Biden's decision to block Japanese-owned Nippon Steel's $14.1 billion bid to acquire US Steel underscores the shift away from globalization and embrace of a broader definition of national security. The US government is increasingly relying on vaguely defined national-security exceptions to block trade and investment deals, according to reporting from Bloomberg's Eric Martin. Not even a takeover by a company based in a close ally like Japan was enough to offset the Biden administration's concerns. President-elect Donald Trump had also pledged to nix the deal. The move, some experts said, may deter foreign companies from investing in the US, particularly from Japan, which is the largest source of foreign direct investment in the US and supports almost 1 million American jobs. Read More: Biden's Decision on US Steel Deal Followed Divide in His Orbit Bill Reinsch, a Commerce Department official during the Clinton administration and now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said "it does seem that the definition of national security is getting broader than it used to be." It's not just the US. A study from Council on Foreign Relations analysts Benn Steil and Elisabeth Harding tracked how the Trump and Biden administrations — followed by many other countries — had increasingly relied on national-security exceptions at the World Trade Organization to block actions they opposed. John Murphy, who leads work on international trade at the US Chamber of Commerce, said the outcome "could have a chilling effect on international investment in America," he said. - Click here to sign up for Bloomberg's Washington Edition newsletter.
—Brendan Murray in London Click here for more of Bloomberg.com's most-read stories about trade, supply chains and shipping. | 
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