The sale of AK Steel to Cleveland-Cliffs, the country's largest iron-ore pellet producer, is slated for finalization today.

The Cleveland-area company will acquire $1.1 billion in issued and outstanding shares of AK Steel stock. The total sale price is $3 billion.

The deal's closure comes on the heels of a statement by Cleveland-Cliffs chairman and CEO Lourenco Goncalves, who “promised” to close the Butler and Zanesville, Ohio, works unless a loophole is closed in the steel tariffs enacted by President Donald Trump.

AK Steel has 1,400 employees, 1,500 retiree families and 540 widows

AK's Butler Works is the only producer of electrical steel in the United States

Some 200 trucks enter the plant every day, bringing supplies for the steelmaking process

Local elected officials agree an AK closure would be “devastating” to the area

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-16th, has taken up the cause of keeping the plant open by closing a tariff loophole

If Cleveland-Cliffs closes the Butler Works, substandard foreign steel would be used for repairs to the national electrical grid, causing a security issue, experts say

Goncalves strongly cautioned that increased protections against imports of grain-oriented electrical steel products into the United States are needed if the company expects to keep the plant in Butler and one in Zanesville, Ohio, open.