President Donald Trump ordered a 25% tariff on steel and aluminium imports, escalating his efforts to protect politically important US industries with levies hitting some of the country’s closest allies.
The tariffs will apply widely to all US imports of steel and aluminium, including from Canada and Mexico, the country’s top two foreign suppliers of the metals. The tariffs will include finished metal products and no exemptions will be made for trading partners. The measures are meant to crack down on what administration officials said were efforts by countries like Russia and China to circumvent existing duties.
Trump’s move comes on top of new 10% tariffs on goods from China; 25% levies on Canada and Mexico that are currently paused; and the president’s plan to slap reciprocal duties on other nations. It is also the broadest-reaching action yet by Trump to confront US trade deficits and harness international commerce as a source of revenue.
Trump authorized the new tariffs under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which gives the president broad authority to impose trade restrictions on domestic security grounds. It is the same power that Trump used to levy steel and aluminium tariffs in 2018, during his first term in office. With his proclamations Monday, Trump is effectively reviving and expanding those tariffs.
A senior administration official said the action was necessary because steel and aluminium exporters abused exceptions under the previous policy, which hurt US producers. The official detailed the moves on a call with reporters earlier Monday on condition of anonymity.
Trump’s decision to include downstream finished products is a significant move that will have broad-reaching price impacts on a massive swath of US consumers. Whereas Trump’s 2018 tariffs focused mostly on raw steelmaking and primary aluminium production, these new tariffs will include things like extrusions and slabs that are turned into value-added products needed in everything from automobiles to window frames and skyscrapers. The move would fullfill what the most extreme trade protectionists have sought for years.
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Trump will also direct US Customs and Border Protection to step up oversight to prevent foreign countries from misclassifying steel products to evade tariffs, the officials said.
The effort reprises a strategy Trump adopted during his first term, when he imposed tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminium that prompted a decline in US imports of the metals. The levies sparked retaliation from US trading partners, including the European Union, which imposed tariffs on iconic American goods, from Harley-Davidson Inc. motorcycles to Levi Strauss & Co. jeans.
Trump ended up granting duty-free status to several major exporters, including Canada, Mexico and Brazil. Former President Joe Biden expanded those exemptions during his term in office.
