President Donald Trump has announced the US will double its current tariff rate on steel and aluminium imports from 25% to 50%, starting on Wednesday.
Speaking at a rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Trump said the move would help boost the local steel industry and national supply, while reducing reliance on China.
Trump also said that $14bn would be invested in the area’s steel production through a partnership between US Steel and Japan’s Nippon Steel, though he later told reporters he had yet to see or approve the final deal.
The announcement is the latest turn in Trump’s rollercoaster approach to tariffs since re-entering office in January.
“There will be no layoffs and no outsourcing whatsoever, and every US steelworker will soon receive a well-deserved $5,000 bonus,” Trump told the crowd.
One of the major concerns from steelworkers about the US-Japan trade deal was how Japan would honour the workers’ union contract, which regulates pay and hiring.
Trump began his remarks by saying he had “saved” US Steel, America’s biggest steel manufacturer, located in Pittsburgh, with the 25% tariffs he implemented during his first term as president in 2018.
Both sales and profits at US Steel have been falling in recent years.
Trump touted the increase to 50% as a way to ensure US Steel’s survival.
He said, “At 50%, they can no longer get over the fence. We are once again going to put Pennsylvania steel into the backbone of America, like never before.”
US steel manufacturing has been declining in recent years, and China, India and Japan have pulled ahead as the world’s top producers. Roughly a quarter of all steel used in the US is imported, and the country’s reliance on Mexican and Canadian steel has angered Trump.
The announcement comes amid a court battle over the legality of some of Trump’s global tariffs, which an appeals court has allowed to continue after the Court of International Trade ordered the administration to halt the taxes.
His tariffs on steel and aluminium were untouched by the lawsuit.
So far the impacts of Trump’s tariffs have largely led to global economic chaos. Global trade and markets have been upended and cracks have formed – or widened – in relations between the US and other countries, including some of its closest partners.
The levies have strained relations between China and the US, the world’s two biggest global economies, and launched the countries into a tit-for-tat trade battle.
On Friday, without providing details, Trump accused China of violating a truce they had reached over tariffs earlier this month, over talks in Geneva.
China then shot back with its own accusations of US wrongdoing. Beijing’s response on Friday did not address the US claims directly but urged the US to “cease discriminatory restrictions against China”.
China is the world’s largest manufacturer of steel, responsible for more than half of global steel production, according to World Steel Association statistics from 2022.
(BBC)
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