Canadian steel. Photographer: Christopher Katsarov Luna/Bloomberg.
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump raised steel and aluminum tariffs to 50 percent, from 25 percent, following through on a pledge to boost U.S. import taxes to help domestic manufacturers. Trump cast the move, which took effect at 12:01 a.m. Washington time on Wednesday, as necessary to protect national security.
An executive order signed on Tuesday said the previous import tax had “not yet enabled” domestic industries “to develop and maintain the rates of capacity production utilization that are necessary for the industries’ sustained health and for projected national defense needs.”
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“Increasing the previously imposed tariffs will provide greater support to these industries and reduce or eliminate the national security threat posed by imports of steel and aluminum articles and their derivative articles,” according to the directive, which the White House posted on X.
This latest tariff is fanning trade tensions at a time when the United States is locked in negotiations with numerous trading partners over Trump’s so-called “reciprocal” duties, ahead of a July 9 deadline. At the same time, the president’s ability to unilaterally impose tariffs stands on shakier legal ground after a federal court last week knocked down many of his other duties put in place under an emergency law. His levies on metals were not subject to that ruling, however, and the president has sought to show he’s undeterred from pressing countries to make offers at the negotiating table.
Taxes on metals imports from the UK will remain at the previous 25 percent rate to allow the two nations to work on new levies or quotas by a July 9 deadline, according to the order. A key component of the nations’ trade framework reached last month was an effort to lower trade barriers on steel, though the two sides did not agree on the extent of relief for British steel and the deal has yet to take effect.
Mexico has said it will ask the U.S. administration for its own exemption from what Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard has called an “unsustainable” increase in import taxes.
Trump announced his decision to hike steel tariffs during a speech at a United States Steel Corp. plant in Pennsylvania last Friday, where he endorsed the sale of the company to Japan’s Nippon Steel Corp. while pledging that it would remain under some form of American control. “That means that nobody’s going to be able to steal your industry,” he told steelworkers. “It’s at 25 percent, they can sort of get over that fence; at 50 percent, they can no longer get over the fence.” He later announced in a social media post that the aluminum tariff would also rise to the same level.
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