WASHINGTON: United States President Donald Trump has slapped 25 percent tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports in his latest push to reshape an international trading order that he claims is unfairly stacked against US manufacturers and workers.
Speaking from the White House as he announced his latest trade salvo on Monday, Trump said that US industry has been “pummelled by both friend and foe alike”.
“Our nation requires steel and aluminium to be made in America, not in foreign lands. We need to create in order to protect our country’s future,” Trump said before signing an executive order to end various country and product-related exemptions from his first administration’s tariffs on steel.
“It’s time for our great industries to come back to America. We want them back to America. This is the first of many.”
Trump said the tariffs, which he had floated on Sunday, would apply to all countries with “no exemptions, no exceptions”.
“This is a big deal,” Trump said. “This is the beginning of making America rich again.”
Trump’s latest tariffs, which are due to take effect on March 12, are all but certain to prompt retaliatory moves from affected countries, which include some of Washington’s closest allies, raising the likelihood of new trade skirmishes on multiple fronts.
“Trump’s latest tariffs on steel and aluminium are not enough by themselves to ignite a full-blown trade war, but it’s definitely an incremental move in that direction,” Gabriel Wildau, senior vice president at the global business advisory firm Teneo, told Al Jazeera.
“US trading partners in Europe and Asia are virtually certain to retaliate, but this retaliation is likely to take the form of comparably narrow sectoral tariffs.”
The US imported about $49bn worth of steel and aluminium in 2024, according to government data.
Canada was the biggest supplier of steel, followed by Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, Germany and Japan, according to the US International Trade Administration.
Canada was also the largest exporter of aluminium, with other major suppliers including the United Arab Emirates, South Korea and China.
Trump’s announcement prompted an almost immediate backlash in Canada.
“Trump wants us to lose our cool. But we need to stay united, with the right response,” Mark Carney, the frontrunner to replace outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as leader of the Liberal Party, said in a post on X.
“In the short term, Canada needs to manage foreign trade threats with dollar-for-dollar tariffs and support for our critical steel and aluminium workers.”
