US President Donald Trump said on Friday he planned to increase tariffs on imported steel and aluminum to 50% from 25%, ratcheting up pressure on global steel producers and deepening 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.
Trump announced the higher tariffs just outside Pittsburgh, where he was talking up an agreement between Nippon Steel and US Steel. Trump said the $14.9 billion deal (€13.1 billion), like the tariff increase, will help keep jobs for steel workers in the US.
He later posted on social media that the increased tariff would also apply to aluminum products and that it would take effect on Wednesday.
Shares of steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs Inc surged 26% after the market close as investors bet the new levies will help its profits.
The doubling of steel and aluminum levies intensifies Trump’s global trade war and came just hours after he accused China of violating an agreement with the US to mutually roll back tariffs and trade restrictions for critical minerals.
A European Commission spokesperson said on Saturday it “strongly regrets” the new tariffs, warning it “undermines ongoing efforts to reach a negotiated solution.”
The spokeperson said the EU was “ready” to retaliate.
“If no mutually acceptable solution is reached, both existing and additional EU measures will automatically take effect on 14 July – or earlier.”
A German government spokesperson said on Saturday that Friedrich Merz would meet Trump in Washington on Thursday – Merz’s first official foreign visit as chancellor.
The European Parliament trade committee chair, Bernd Lange, said EU countermeasures should be imposed “immediately” if the announced tariffs take effect.
“An act of economic self-harm”
Canada’s Chamber of Commerce quickly denounced the tariff hike as “antithetical to North American economic security.”
“Unwinding the efficient, competitive and reliable cross-border supply chains like we have in steel and aluminum comes at a great cost to both countries,” Candace Laing, president of the chamber, said in a statement.
Australia’s centre-left government also condemned the tariff increase as “unjustified and not the act of a friend.”
“They are an act of economic self-harm that will only hurt consumers and businesses who rely on free and fair trade,” Trade Minister Don Farrell said in a statement.
Australia, a key US security ally in the Indo-Pacific, would “continue to engage and advocate strongly for the removal of the tariffs,” Farrell said.
Trump spoke at US Steel’s Mon Valley Works, a steel plant that symbolizes both the one-time strength and the decline of US manufacturing power as the Rust Belt’s steel plants and factories lost business to international rivals. Closely contested Pennsylvania is also a major prize in presidential elections.
