[WASHINGTON] US President Donald Trump signed a directive on Tuesday (Jun 3) raising steel and aluminium tariffs to 50 per cent from 25 per cent starting on Jun 4, following through on a pledge to boost import taxes to help domestic manufacturers.
Trump cast the move, which takes effect at 12.01 am Wednesday as necessary to protect national security.
The order said the previous charge had “not yet enabled” domestic industries “to develop and maintain the rates of capacity production utilisation that are necessary for the industries’ sustained health and for projected national defence needs.”
“Increasing the previously imposed tariffs will provide greater support to these industries and reduce or eliminate the national security threat posed by imports of steel and aluminium articles and their derivative articles,” reads the order, which the White House posted on X.
Metals tariffs on imports from the UK will remain at the previous 25 per cent rate to allow the two nations to work on new levies or quotas by a July nine deadline, according to the order.
Trump’s decision fans trade tensions at a time when the US is locked in negotiations with numerous trading partners over his so-called “reciprocal” duties before a Jul 9 deadline.
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The president’s ability to unilaterally impose tariffs stands on shakier legal ground, after a federal court knocked down duties he announced under an emergency law. His levies on metals were not subject to that ruling, however.
Trump announced the decision during a speech at a US Steel plant in Pennsylvania on Friday, where he endorsed the sale of the company to Japan’s Nippon Steel while pledging that it would remain under some form of American control.
“That means that nobody’s going to be able to steal your industry,” he told steelworkers on Friday, in announcing the higher tariff. “It’s at 25 per cent, they can sort of get over that fence; at 50 per cent they can no longer get over the fence.”
He later announced in a social media post that the aluminium tariff would also rise to the same level.
Trump’s administration is locked in a legal battle over the bulk of its tariffs, imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The steel and aluminium tariffs are unaffected by that fight because they were imposed using a different authority. BLOOMBERG
