30-05-2025
Trump doubles steel tariffs to 50% in ‘major announcement'
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the U.S. Steel Mon Valley Works-Irvin Plant, Friday, May 30, 2025, in West Mifflin, Pa. (AP Photo/David Dermer)
U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday that he would set tariffs on steel imported into the United States at 50 per cent, double their current rate.
At a US Steel facility in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, Trump said he had a 'major announcement.' To an applauding crowd of US Steel employees, Trump said he would jack up the tariff to protect America's steelworkers.
'We are going to be imposing a 25 per cent increase,' Trump said. 'We're going to bring it from 25 to 50 per cent, the tariffs on steel into the United States of America, which will even further secure the steel industry in the United States. Nobody's going to get around that.'
Trump said he was considering a 40 per cent tariff, but industry executives told him they wanted a 50 per cent tariff.
'At 25 per cent they can sorta get over that fence,' Trump said. 'At 50 per cent nobody's getting over that fence.'
Trump on March 12 imposed sweeping 25 per cent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports, which were met with immediate retaliation from Canada and dismay from America's auto industry. The European Union also lashed out and announced retaliatory tariffs that it ultimately rescinded.
Trump on Friday praised his tariffs for saving the US steel industry, claiming American steelmaking would have disappeared if he hadn't acted to impose tariffs. He said all steel would have been foreign-made and factories would have closed.
Although tariffs may have given the moribund American steel business a much-needed boost, they could raise prices on a key ingredient for American construction and manufacturing – two industries Trump has said he wanted to support.
In 2018, when Trump imposed some steel tariffs in his first term, US production expanded modestly, but it sent costs rising for cars, tools and machines and shrank those industries' output by more than US$3 billion in 2021, the International Trade Commission found in a 2023 analysis. The costs may have outweighed the benefits.
Trump used a law commonly referred to as Section 232, which gives the president the authority to impose higher tariffs on national security grounds, to put increased levies on foreign steel.
In total, the US imported US$31.3 billion worth of iron and steel last year, according to data from the US Commerce Department. (The government data groups iron and steel together.) Canada was the top source of iron and steel, shipping US$7.6 billion worth it to the US.
