Up First from NPR - Shangri-La Dialogue, Nippon/U.S. Steel Deal, Taylor Swift Gets Her Masters

Episode Date: May 31, 2025

At the annual security forum in Singapore, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth characterizes China as a threat. President Trump celebrates a partnership between Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel, but he's short on specifics. After years of wrangling, Taylor Swift gets control of her first master recordings.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

China's defense minister isn't at the Shangri-La dialogue. But U.S. defense secretary Pete Hegseth is. And at the Security Forum, he's warning Asian military officials about China. I'm Scott Simon. I'm Ayesha Roscoe and this is Up First from NPR News. Japan-based Nippon Steel wanted to buy U.S. steel. Both the Biden and Trump administrations were opposed. But last night at a Pennsylvania steel plant,

President Trump touted a deal that he says allows a partnership between the two companies. The details are unclear, but what do people in and around Pittsburgh think about it? Also, Taylor Swift is back in control of her first master recordings. So please stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. At a time of sound bites and short attention spans, our show is all about the deep dive. We do long form interviews with people behind the best

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wherever you get your podcasts. In Singapore, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegsef said the U.S. would reorient its policies and its military to deter what he described as a looming threat from China. He also wants China's neighbors and allies in the region to support that effort. Hegseth spoke at the annual Security and Defense Forum known as the Shangri-La Dialogue. And PRS Anthony Kuhn joins us from Singapore. Anthony, thank you for being with us.

Nice to join you, Scott. And how did the Secretary describe this threat from China? Well, Secretary Hegseth was speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue which is the region's main annual security forum. A friend described it to me as Davos for men in uniform and he said that China is intimidating and harassing its neighbors including Taiwan. It's using gray zone tactics that are short of war but are coercive and at the same time he insisted that the US does not seek to strangle or humiliate China, but he said that China's threat is real.

Let's hear what he said. China seeks to become a hegemonic power in Asia. No doubt. It hopes to dominate and control too many parts of this vibrant and vital region. Through its massive military buildup and growing willingness to use military force to achieve its goals, China has demonstrated that it wants to fundamentally alter the region's status quo. Interestingly, he also complained that China has great economic leverage over its neighbors, and this complicates defense calculations for the U.S.

How were his remarks received by those there? Well, you know, Scott, U.S. officials have been reassuring China for many years that they don't want to contain it or strangle it. China has never really been convinced, and I think they're even less convinced this time. China did not send its defense minister this year, perhaps because they feel the atmosphere is too hostile. The U.S. wants other nations to ramp up defense spending,

and many of them are doing that, but perhaps not to the levels that Washington wants. Another country that's very concerned is South Korea because the new alignment could see the U.S. withdraw troops from that country basically leaving it to North Korea and they see North Korea as the threat, not China. Is the focus on China going to affect U.S. military presence in the region? Yes, it is doing that. Already, the US military is reorganizing and downsizing and spreading out some of its military units to make them harder for Chinese missiles to hit. And then it's also putting missiles

within the first island chain in the Western Pacific to try to control the sea lanes there. Now, Hegseth noted that the US has missiles in the northern Philippines, also in Japan's southwest islands, both northeast and southeast of Taiwan. Secretary Hegseth's remarks seem to echo President Trump's America's first policies, and I wonder if you said anything about that. Well, there was a lot of domestic focus. He slammed previous administration's defense policies as weak, and he praised President

Trump for being a great deal maker and policy maker. Now a lot of the admission that the US is going to put its own interests first I think is understood by people in the region but when they're given marching orders to fall into line with the US that's where I think many governments seem to chafe at the suggestion. And Piers Anthony Kuhn joining us from Singapore. Anthony, thanks so much for being with us. You're welcome, Scott. U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel have a potential deal that would bring billions in investment

from the Japanese company to the U.S. President Trump applauded this agreement at a steel mill just outside of Pittsburgh last night and said it would protect and even create new steel jobs in a long struggling US industry. This is an incredible deal for American steel workers and it includes vital protections to ensure that all steel workers will keep their jobs

and all facilities in the United States will remain open and thriving. This is a deal Trump opposed on the campaign trail, but trying to reassure his critics, he said U.S. still will still have an American CEO and a corporate board with a U.S. majority. But the president was light on specifics and admitted later there is no final deal yet. And here's Don Gagne joins us now from Pittsburgh. Don, thanks for being with us. Good morning.

What's the reaction in steel country? I've been in and around Allegheny County these past couple of days and in West Mifflin, where a key US Steel facility is located. So let's start there with the local mayor. His name is Chris Kelly. What was your immediate reaction? I started to cry. I mean, I've lived this for a year and a half.

And I thought, wow, this is, I wasn't expecting it. And he made it clear they were tears of joy, he's talking. Did the mayor talk about how his community had been hurt by the decline of US Steel? Yeah, he's lived it. He grew up in a nearby town where he says it was decades of decline. He Yeah, he's lived it. He grew up in a nearby town where he says it was decades of decline. He says one mill after another closed and more than 200,000 jobs disappeared.

And I saw the devastation that came along with individuals losing their homes and their jobs, their cars, their families, you know, turn to drug abuse, eventually domestic violences, and I didn't want to see that. And he sees the new investments from Nippon Steel as new life. What did people in the community tell you? So most are only just learning some of the details, but it's being welcomed for lots of reasons. I met 55-year-old Malik Swain outside a local restaurant. He said it's good news, including what updating these old mills will mean for the environment.

I think it's good for the Mawn Valley, actually. I think it's going to keep jobs there, grow it. They're also going to upgrade the facility. So I think that's a good thing as far as air quality goes, hopefully. I do want to note here that the United Steelworkers, the national union, has long been opposed to Nippon coming in citing national security and allegations of unfair trade practices. Of course, Don, it's interesting that the President has really increased trade pressure in other countries.

What do his supporters say about Nippon Steel, which is, after all, a Japanese company potentially taking over a company that was once such a cornerstone of US manufacturing. And that was a big reason during the campaign last year that both candidate Trump and President Biden opposed this proposed deal with Nippon Steel. Now, though, such concerns seem to be overridden by the prospect of more jobs.

But listen to this. I heard this from a local resident. His name is Mike Medich. I'm glad it's Japan rather than China because China has a lot of investments in our country, which I don't think they should have. And I'll add here that Medich doesn't necessarily see this as a big engine for new jobs. But he says had this mill closed, that would have been a real blow to the community. And Piers, Don Gagne.

Don, thanks so much for being with us. It's a pleasure. After years of bad blood over the ownership of her early albums, Taylor Swift's master recordings finally belonged to her. She made the announcement on her website Friday calling it more than a dream come true. Swift had already re-recorded four of the six albums which she calls Taylor's Versions. And PR music Stephen Thompson joins us now. Stephen, thanks for being with us. Thank you, Scott.

Been a long time coming for Taylor Swift, hasn't it? Yeah, it is the product of years of disputes. Taylor Swift's first six albums came out on a label called Big Machine Records. In 2019, after she'd completed that contract, Big Machine was sold to a group led by her former manager, Scooter Braun. The next year, he sold the Masters to a group called Shamrock Holdings. Taylor Swift was furious. She still coveted ownership of her Masters and felt like she'd been kind of denied the chance to bid on her own work. And so she set about recording new versions of those albums

herself, basically to create a new set of Master recordings that she would control. But she has openly wished for years that she could acquire those rights and to essentially own her entire career output outright. How much did this cost Taylor Swift to get back her own masters? Billboard magazine is reporting that she paid roughly $360 million. And that that's not far off from what Shamrock Holdings paid. What does it mean for an artist to own their own master recordings? Well Taylor Swift has always retained publishing rights to her songs.

She writes her own material, that's part of what allowed her to re-record the albums herself. But owning the masters means that she has complete control of how her music is used. Like the actual recordings themselves. She can authorize their use on soundtracks and commercials however she wants, and it goes without saying that the catalog for an artist like Taylor Swift is worth an absolute fortune. It's no longer a tradable asset to anyone

but Taylor Swift herself, and I think it's safe to say that her catalog is no longer for sale. And how unusual is this for an artist? There's definitely precedent for it. You know, artists have gone back and reacquired their rights. Jay-Z, Rihanna, you know, a few others have gone back and gone through the process of purchasing their own works. But she's kind of trying to set a template for other artists going forward to make sure

that in the deals they sign, they have the opportunity to reacquire control of their own work. What happens now? Is she going to put out what I'll call new versions of her originals now that she owns the Masters? Well in the statement that she made on her website she said she's still gonna put out those Taylor's versions of the other two records that haven't come out yet. Her self-titled debut from 2006 and her album Reputation from 2017. She said the debut record is basically done, it's ready to be released, but that Reputation is going to take a while because it's the one she feels the least need to retool. So the way she put it is that those new versions are still going to come out, but there'll be a celebration instead of a bittersweet reclamation. She's now the soul

keeper of the Taylor Swift empire. I hope she writes a whole album about how happy she is. And Pierre Stephen Thompson, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you, Scott. And that's it first for Saturday, May 31st, 2025. I'm Scott Simon. And I'm Aisha Roscoe. Today's podcast was produced by Elena Torek with help from Danny Hensel. Our director is Andrew Craig and he keeps us in line. Quite a job too. Our editors include Vincent Nee, Megan Prats, Martha Ann Overland, Jacob

Fenston and Melissa Gray, who is the wind beneath our wings. You know who else keeps us aloft? Andy Huther, our technical director with engineering support from Zach Coleman, David Greenberg, and Arthur Holliday-Lorette. Shannon Rhodes is our acting senior supervising editor, Evie Stone is our executive producer, and Jim Kane is our deputy managing editor. Well, they're right along with Melissa as the wind beneath our wings. It's cold here in their shadows, but we press on. Hahaha! Tomorrow on The Sunday Story, you can find a lot of things behind a strip mall in New Jersey,

including, at least in one case, fossils from 66 million years ago. A new museum has opened up on a dig site in the southern part of the state and will take you there. And for more news, interviews and analysis, sometimes just plain fun, you can tune into Weekend Edition on your radio. Go to stations.npr.org to find your local NPR station. When Malcolm Gladwell presented NPR's Throughline podcast with a Peabody Award, he praised it for its historical and moral clarity. On Thru Line, we take you back in time to the origins of what's in the news like

presidential power, aging, and evangelicalism. Time travel with us every week on the Thru Line podcast from NPR. On the Planet Money podcast, you've seen them, those labels that say made in China or made in France. But what do they really mean? The reaction was, it can't possibly work like that. That can't possibly be right. We dig into the delightfully convoluted rules behind country of origin. What makes, say, a Chinese product Chinese?

And how companies facing tariffs are getting creative. From Planet Money on NPR, wherever you get your podcasts. So I'm curious. What's your reaction to a 24 year old woman dating a 73 year old multimillionaire? Are you team girl get your bag or team girl you're a gold digger? Well, superstar football coach Bill Balachick and his younger girlfriend Jordan Hudson are getting a lot of attention for their relationship. And on the It's Been A Minute podcast, I'm asking why we're so divided on what their relationship is about.

Listen to the It's Been A Minute podcast today.