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Donald Trump says he will impose a 25 percent tariff on all steel and aluminum imports into the US, threatening to bring up riots in the goods markets and ignite trade wars across the globe.
Officials said the fees were a response to the “foreign players” responsible for “increasing exports” of metals in the country and “undermining American manufacturers” of steel and aluminum.
They said the tariffs would apply to all US imports and no exceptions would be given to specific products. Tariffs would begin on March 4, said a person acquainted with the plan.
Although the mass is created to protect internal steel producers, they will surely affect us allies – including Canada and Mexico – and can significantly increase costs for American manufacturers who import metals.
“This is a big job – making America rich again,” Trump said, as he was signed in tariffs at Oval office on Monday evening.
The US president’s tariff announcement comes three weeks after his return to the White House and marks an escalation of his protectionist agenda. It follows its announcement of new taxes on the two closest trade partners in the US, Mexico and Canada. These will take effect in early March.
Trump also said he intended to impose reciprocal tariffs on countries that had taxes on American goods within the next few days.
“President Trump is standing for American steel and aluminum workers like no other leader,” said Peter Navarro, an old councilor for trade and production at the White House.
Tariffs “would end foreign throwing, increase internal production and secure ours.. Industries such as the spine and industries of America’s economic and national security pillars,” he added.
Trump set a 25 percent tariff on all steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum imports in 2018 during his previous trading war, before negotiating carve-outs for some countries.
Joe Biden, who inherited Trump’s metal tariffs when he took office in 2021, hit agreement with the EU, the United Kingdom and Japan they allowed them to export a certain amount of steel and their aluminum to the USA task.
US officials on Monday said those agreements would be repealed, and tariffs would be put into steel and aluminum imports from all countries, eliminating the process of excluding the product, which an official called a “gap”.
“We had a process of excluding the product that completely departed from the control in Biden’s years,” said a White House official. “And there were literally hundreds of thousands of approved exceptions, and millions of tons of steel and aluminum metrics have not been charged properly.”
Native American steel makers welcomed tariffs. “The steel industry in America faces serious threats from foreign actors seeking to destroy domestic production,” said Philip Bell, president of the Stelellik Association.
The latest directive risks causing immediate retaliation from the EU, which responded to Trump’s fees in 2018 by imposing its US € 2.8 billion value tax, including Bourbon and Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
The EU raised those fees as part of the Biden -mediated agreement in 2021.
Canadian Minister of Industry François-Philippe Champagne posted on Monday evening that the fees are “fully unjustified”, adding that Ottawa’s response would be “clear and calibrated”.
Candace Laing, chief executive of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said the new Trump tariff announcement made “clear” that “permanent uncertainty is here to stay”.
Laing added: “If President Trump wants to win for Americans, he should not tax steel and aluminum on which American defense, production, airspace and energy energy rely.”
Trump said this would give “great consideration” to the exclusion of Australian steel from the fees, despite the difficult line taken in other countries. “We actually have a surplus. One of the only places we do,” he told reporters.
Trump and Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister of Australia, discussed the surplus and supply of Australian steel in the US defense and production industries. Albanese said Trump had agreed that an engraving for the Australian steel and Aluminum was “in the interest of both countries”, but that further discussions were needed.
Metal prices increased in the US on Monday before Trump’s announcement as traders moved to secure supplies, with a closely viewed aluminum contract with about 10 percent and the premium for the future of American copper over those in London that They hit their highest level since 2020.
Additional reporting from Nic Fildes to Melbourne and Ilya Gridneff in Toronto
