‘Sounds good to me’: Trump on Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern merger
Nearly two months after Union Pacific announced its intended $85 billion acquisition of Atlanta-based Norfolk Southern, President Donald Trump is signaling his support for the country’s first transcontinental railroad company.
When asked about the proposed merger, Trump told reporters on Friday: “I mean, sounds good to me, to be honest with you. I’m a very big fan of the head of … Union Pacific.”
The deal, which would consolidate the companies into one headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, and thus cost Georgia a Fortune 500 company headquarters, must be approved by the Surface Transportation Board. The five-member panel is in charge of the economic regulation of freight rail.
Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific have until January to file their application to the board and must also secure shareholder approval.
Trump’s comments came weeks after the White House fired the only member of the board to vote against the most recent rail merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern in 2023.
Robert Primus, who was first nominated by Trump and renominated by Joe Biden, called his termination “deeply troubling and legally invalid” in a post on LinkedIn. His term was set to expire in 2027.
Jim Vena, CEO of Omaha-based Union Pacific, met with the president earlier this month, Trump told Fox News.
Vena had told an investor conference in mid-September that based on his meetings in Washington, D.C., top administration officials think “it’s an absolute win for the country.” The companies hope to close the deal by early 2027.
Norfolk Southern CEO Mark George said at the same conference that “there’s just a lot of optimism and positivity toward what we’re doing.”
He pointed out that there has been a “big change” on the Surface Transportation Board since the election: “We think that the members are pragmatists, and they’ll be open and receptive.”
The news comes over the protest of several key Democrats in Washington. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer immediately criticized the idea after it was announced in July, warning it would push the country “even further down the road of dangerous consolidation and monopoly power.”
U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, decried Primus’ firing and called the proposed deal a “huge favor for Wall Street and wealthy railroad owners.”
Primus told CBS he’d had no warning of his termination before his phone stopped working. He said he had not publicly disclosed any opinion on the merger, though he noted he had previously expressed concern about freight rail consolidation and its effects on prices and service quality for customers.
More than a half dozen railroad customer groups asked regulators to block the proposed merger for fear of its effect on prices and service, the Financial Times reported last month.
Customers and unions will have the chance to submit comments to the board after the application is filed.
Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern have been working on their own campaign, gathering voices in support of their deal as they work on their more than 4,000-page application.
A “supporters” page on a pro-merger website highlights customers and politicians in favor of the idea.
Those include Georgia Republican Lt. Gov. and gubernatorial candidate Burt Jones, who called the deal “great news for Georgia’s growing economy and expanding logistics network.”
On Monday the companies secured a major boost of support from the nation’s largest railroad union, SMART-TD, which had previously said it had “every intention to oppose this merger.”
It changed that stance after the two companies signed an agreement to guarantee the union’s 15,000 Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern members “job protection for the length of their careers” in a combined company and protection from involuntary furloughs.
“For generations, railroaders have worried about what mergers might mean for their jobs and whether or not they would be given the opportunity to reach retirement on the rail,” SMART-TD President Jeremy Ferguson said in a statement, saying the new agreement was “breaking new ground.”
In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Ferguson said now that the agreement is in place, his union will be working with the companies on their plans.
“We know how to make mergers happen. We know how to make Day One happen,” he said.
And, he said, “I have a pretty good feeling that it’s going to get approved the way it stands right now.”
The two companies had already pledged that all union employees “will have job opportunities with the combined company,” according to the companies’ FAQ on the proposed merger. Nonunion workers, it says, “will have opportunities to grow as part of a larger, combined enterprise.”
The two railroads vowed in their FAQ that Atlanta will remain a “core location for the combined organization in the long term with a focus on technology, operations and innovation.”
However, industry experts have predicted the deal will drastically affect Norfolk Southern’s Atlanta headquarters.
The companies have acknowledged they expect “some consolidation of overlapping functions in corporate roles following closing.”
About the Author
As a business reporter, Emma Hurt leads coverage of the Atlanta airport, Delta Air Lines, UPS, Norfolk Southern and other travel and logistics companies. Prior to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution she worked as an editor and Atlanta reporter for Axios, a politics reporter for WABE News and a business reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
