With the announcement that 25% tariffs will impose to aluminum and steel from all over the world, “without exceptions or exemptions,” the president of the United States, Donald Trump, climbed on Monday a step in the hostilities of the war Commercial, already global, who has undertaken on his return to the White House. Trump adopted that measure – which adds to those of last week and is a considerable expansion of the battlefield of his protectionism – through a decree, which he signed in the morning in the oval office. In doing so, he said: “This is something very important: [servirá para] Make the United States again is rich. ”
The new tariffs mainly affect allied countries of the first power, and in the case of their American partners, Canada and Mexico, they suppose a de facto breakdown of the free trade agreement that unites them (T-MEC)
The five main steel suppliers to the US were in January Canada (11.2 billion dollars), followed by Brazil, Mexico, South Korea and Germany. So the northern neighbor – which also heads, with 9,500 million, the list of aluminum exporters, with, in that order, United Arab Emirates, Russia and China at a considerable distance – is the main victim for this measure, which arrives Only a week after Trump threatened 25% tariffs to their imports. Finally, he ended up applauding them for a month after the markets and reciprocal threats of Ottawa collapsed.
The levies will not only harm those countries; They also promise to increase costs for US companies and consumers, a group of affected that includes soda and beer fans from the car industry.
The new administration considers that the benefits of the taxes announced will be greater for the national steel and aluminum industry than their damages for the rest. This was repeated on Monday in a call with journalists Trump’s commercial advisor, Peter Navarro. “Steel and aluminum tariffs 2.0 will end dumping Foreign, will boost national production and ensure our industries as a spine and pillars of the economic security of the United States, ”he said.
The measure could not be a surprise for anyone, because Trump had advanced on Sunday afternoon his intention to change the rules of the trade of both products, as he did during his first presidency, when he decreed in 2018 taxes of 25% to steel and 10% to aluminum. Also, because during the campaign that returned it to the White House, the candidate repeated in his rallies that “tariffs” was his “favorite word” of the dictionary.
The advance staged on board Air Force One, Before a handful of journalists who accompanied New Orleans to the final of the National Football League (NFL). While an assistant held a somewhat rough map with the new name he has given to the Trump has decreed to be called from America, the president also promised that he will announce reciprocal tariffs “on Tuesday or Wednesday” on other products, with which he already already Last week and that will come into force as soon as possible. “It’s very simple: if they charge us, we charge them,” he said.
The sequence of events – the previous bombing and Monday in suspense – made the week at the White House, the fourth of Trump’s second round, began as the previous one, with the escalation of a commercial war of unpredictable consequences for the economy global. Last Monday, the day of which, seen the presidential hyperactivity, it is hard to believe that only seven days have passed, Canada and Mexico achieved a postponement of a month in the application of 25% tariffs with which Trump had threatened them the previous Saturday .
A month to negotiate
A call with President Claudia Sheinbaum was enough for Mexico to stop the tariff on the attack. In return, Sheinbaum promised to strengthen the military presence on the border and another series of measures that were already underway. Canada, whose prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and some provincial authorities, had responded with a detailed list of tariff Control people and fentanyl traffic in the LINDE between the two countries.
That month, Trump trusts, will help you start concessions that allow to balance the trade balance with its two T-MEC partners, renegotiated by himself. Mexico is, the main supplier of the United States. Imports from the southern neighbor marked last year a historical maximum of 505,851 million dollars. Although US exports also increased, the commercial deficit between the two countries also marked a new record, of 171,189 million dollars. That of Canada amounted to 63,336 million, 1.5% less than the previous year, according to the data of the Office of Economic Analysis, under the Department of Commerce.
The last time Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, did so with most countries in the spotlight and under a law allows the president to raise levies on imports that involve a threat to national security without The approval of Congress. Then, China and the European Union responded with retaliation tariffs against US exports, especially focused on agricultural products. Then the exemptions to allied countries and blocks arrived, including Mexico and Brazil, which now, at least for the moment, are not contemplated. During his term, the Democrat Joe Biden (2021-2015) expanded these installments to the European Union and the United Kingdom.
The absence of caveats expands this time the Club of the victims of the protectionism of the new US administration, determined to redouble the commitment to the protectionism of its first mandate. In that club he had been in China since last week, whose Trump products announced that he would impose, with the argument, also used with Canada and Mexico that Beijing does not do enough to stop the illegal traffic of fentanyl, a powerful opioid to which he is responsible around three quarters of about 100,000 deaths due to overdose that are recorded every year in the country. After that strategy, to blame others for the most serious drug crisis in the history of the United States, an insistence on ignoring who and where the demand for fentanyl is generated.
China – which responded to the onslaught last week with reciprocal tariffs worth about 14,000 million dollars that entered into force on Monday – dominates the global aluminum and steel trade, but does not export large quantities, neither from one nor from one or the other, to the United States. Last September, Biden rose taxes to both products up to 25%. Most of Chinese aluminum and steel remains within its borders, destined to supply the real estate BUM and the automobile industry. A call between Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, announced last week, is still pending, while on Monday the retaliation tariffs of Beijing already entered into force. The US president has said that he has no “hurry” because this conversation between leaders of the enemy powers takes place.
