By Jeff Mason
WEST MIFFLIN, Pennsylvania (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said he planned to increase tariffs on foreign imports of steel from 25% to 50%, ratcheting up pressure on global steel producers and vowing to deepen his trade war.
“We are going to be imposing a 25% increase. We’re going to bring it from 25% to 50% the tariffs on steel into the United States of America, which will even further secure the steel industry in the United States,” he said at a rally in Pennsylvania.
The levy increase will take effect next week.
The steel tariffs, along with levies on aluminum, were among the earliest put into effect by Trump when he returned to office in January. The tariffs of 25% on most steel and aluminum imported to the U.S. went into effect in March, and he had briefly threatened a 50% levy on Canadian steel but ultimately backed off.
Under the so-called Section 232 national security authority, the import taxes include both raw metals and derivative products as diverse as stainless steel sinks, gas ranges, air conditioner evaporator coils, horseshoes, aluminum fry pans and steel door hinges.
The total 2024 import value for the 289 product categories came to $147.3 billion with nearly two-thirds aluminum and one-third steel, according to Census Bureau data retrieved through the U.S. International Trade Commission’s Data Web system.
By contrast, Trump’s first two rounds of punitive tariffs on Chinese industrial goods in 2018 during his first term totaled $50 billion in annual import value.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Chris Reese)
