US President Donald Trump announced Friday that tariffs on steel imports imposed last March will rise from 25 % to 50 %.
“We are going to rise from 25 % to 50 % tariffs on steel in the United States, which will ensure even more industry in the country,” said the president in a rally held in a US Steel factory in the city of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania).
The Republican leader celebrated that the public of the event, full of workers from this industry, “understands the word better than the people of Wall Street”, and pointed out that “tariff” is his fourth favorite word after “God, wife and family.”
According to the president, he initially thought about increasing these levies to 40 % but industry executives asked him to rise to 50 %.
Trump’s announcement takes place just one day after an appeal court lifted the blockade of the International Trade Court of much of Trump’s tariff policy on imports from numerous countries.
This block would not have affected steel levies but those announced on April 2, which consist of a 10 % global tariff for practically all US commercial partners.
In addition, it would also have blocked to a proportion – which was frozen until July to sign agreements – that varies according to the country based on deficits and commercial volumes and that the White House labeled as “reciprocal tariffs.”
At the rally held today in Pittsburgh, the president focused on celebrating the alliance to which he gave the green light on May 23 between the Japanese Riger Nippon Steel and the American Us Steel.
The president assured that day that this agreement, that on January 3 was blocked by the then President Joe Biden, would create at least 70,000 jobs and contribute 14,000 million dollars to the US economy.
Trump said, before Biden’s decision, that he opposed the operation frontally, but after returning to the White House and receiving in February the Japanese prime minister, Shigeru Ihiba, was favorable to the fact that Nippon Steel can acquire a limited participation in the American giant coming unless.
Today, the president said that the alliance “will ensure that this historical American company remains American” and said that “Japan has been a great friend” during his years as president, referring to his previous mandate.
“A strong steel industry is not just a matter of dignity, prosperity and pride. It is, above all, a matter of national security,” he said.
In addition, he defended his tariff policy again ensuring that six months ago the United States was a nation “that was dying” and that now “is spoken anywhere in the world.”
