Washington: President Donald Trump says the United States will impose 25 per cent tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports, including from Canada and Mexico, as well as other import duties later in the week.
“Any steel coming in to the United States is going to have a 25 per cent tariff,” he told reporters on Sunday [Monday AEDT] on Air Force One as he flew to New Orleans to attend the Super Bowl. When asked about aluminium, he responded, “aluminum, too”, will be subject to the trade penalties.
Trump also reaffirmed that he would announce “reciprocal tariffs” – “probably Tuesday or Wednesday” – meaning that the US would impose import duties on products in cases where another country has levied duties on US goods.
Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One.Credit: AP
“If they are charging us 130 per cent, and we’re charging them nothing, it’s not going to stay that way,” he told reporters.
Trump, during his first term, imposed tariffs of 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminium but later granted several trading partners duty-free quotas, including Canada, Mexico and Brazil.
Loading
Former president Joe Biden extended these quotas to Britain, Japan and the European Union, and US steel mill capacity utilisation has dropped in recent years. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said that the new tariffs would come on top of the existing duties on steel and aluminium.
On Friday, Trump announced that he would impose reciprocal tariffs – raising US tariff rates to match those of trading partners – in many countries this week. He did not identify the countries, but the duties would be imposed “so that we’re treated evenly with other countries”.
The moves are Trump’s latest in a series of threatened tariffs on countries and specific sectors.
