With President-elect Donald Trump soon taking office, businesses are optimistic about the soon-to-be-changing economic landscape in the country. United States Steel is one such company that is already planning to do things differently under a Trump administration.
"We already structured to do some things, but when you see in the near future improvement to the tax laws, improvements to regulation, those two things by themselves may be a significant driver to what we're going to do," CEO Mario Longhi said in an interview with CNBC.
"I'd be more than happy to bring back the employees we've been forced to lay off during that depressive period," he added, which "could be close to 10,000 jobs."
The company later clarified that Longhi was referring to jobs in the steel industry as a whole, not just at U.S. Steel.
Promises of less regulation play a significant role in the optimistic outlook, although Longhi said not all regulation is a bad, it just “has to be done smartly.”
"When you get into some situations where we're being asked to control some substances in water that are far lower than what nature naturally offers, that's irrational," he said.
"There was a point in time in the past couple years that I was having to hire more lawyers to try to interpret these new regulations than I was hiring … engineers. That doesn't make any sense."
Shares of U.S. Steel have skyrocketed since the election, likely a result of Trump’s pledge to increase the nation’s infrastructure spending and a place more restrictions on China-produced steel.