U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that he will double the tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to 50 per cent.
The increase will take effect Wednesday, Trump said in a Truth Social post shortly after he announced the new rate for steel imports at a rally with steelworkers in Pennsylvania.
“Our steel and aluminum industries are coming back like never before. This will be yet another BIG jolt of great news for our wonderful steel and aluminum workers,” Trump wrote.
Trump initially announced the boosted duties on steel during a rally at U.S. Steel’s Mon Valley Works–Irvin Plant near Pittsburgh Friday evening, where he criticized countries for “dumping” their “garbage” steel products into the U.S. at a lower cost.
“We are going to bring it from 25 per cent to 50 per cent the tariffs on steel into the United States of America which will even further secure the steel industry in the United States,” Trump told the crowd.
“Nobody is going to get around that.”
In March Trump put 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to the United States. The president has said his sweeping tariffs will bring manufacturing back to the United States.
Such a dramatic increase could push prices even higher.
Steel prices have climbed 16 per cent since Trump became president in mid-January, according to the government’s Producer Price Index.
Trump on Friday said he was thinking about a 40 per cent tariff, but said “the group” wanted it to be 50 per cent.
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Trump announced the increased tariffs during a rally to celebrate a deal between Japan-based Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel. Trump said U.S. Steel will stay an American company but few details of the deal have been made public.
Nippon Steel issued a statement approving of the proposed “partnership,” which Trump has said will include a US$14 billion investment” in U.S. Steel on top of its US$14.9 billion bid to buy the company outright. It’s not clear if a deal has been finalized.
Some U.S. analysts have credited tariffs going back to Trump’s first term with helping strengthen the domestic steel industry, something that Nippon Steel wanted to capitalize on in its offer to buy U.S. Steel.
Trump said Friday that if it wasn’t for those tariffs, “I don’t think you’d have a steel mill open in the country.”
“It was just in time. They were closing up faster than you can count,” he said.
Trump used national security powers to impose a 25-per-cent tariff on steel imports and a 10-per-cent tariff on aluminum imports in March 2018.
Nearly a year later, the White House announced a deal had been reached to prevent “surges” in steel and aluminum supplies from Canada and Mexico, ending the trade dispute.
A report by the Washington-based Tax Foundation said during that time companies were forced to pay higher prices and the duties resulted in the loss of about 75,000 manufacturing jobs.
The Peterson Institute for International Economics found that each job saved in steel-producing industries came at a high cost to consumers – roughly $650,000 per job.
The Canadian steel industry has warned the return of Trump’s tariffs would bring back the disruption and harm seen in 2018. There were also job losses and production pauses in Canada.
Trump promised during the U.S. election campaign to make the revitalization of American manufacturing a priority of his second term in office. And the fate of U.S. Steel, once the world’s largest corporation, could become a political liability in the midterm elections for his Republican Party in the swing state of Pennsylvania and other battleground states dependent on industrial manufacturing.
Trump said Sunday he wouldn’t approve the deal if U.S. Steel did not remain under U.S. control and said it will keep its headquarters in Pittsburgh.
The president closed his remarks Friday by thanking steelworkers.
“With the help of patriots like you, we’re going to produce our own metal, unleash our own energy, secure our own future, build our country, control our destiny,” he said. “We are once again going to put Pennsylvania steel into the backbone of America like never before.”
—With files from The Canadian Press and The Associated Press
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