President Donald Trump signed off Thursday on a
25% tariff on all steel products and 10% on all aluminium products from every
country with the exceptions of Canada and Mexico, Kallanish reports.
The conclusion of the 232 investigation also
leaves room for other countries and domestic importers of certain products to appeal
for exclusion, provided “... alternative means are agreed upon to ensure
imports from a country no longer threaten to impair our national security,”
according to a White House statement.
The tariffs will become active in 15 days.
The formal signing of the tariffs signals the
end of President Trump’s 232 national security investigation, which began last
April. The investigation was temporarily delayed in the middle of the year,
allegedly by President Trump’s decision to focus on health care, infrastructure
and tax reform ahead of trade.
The 232 has acted as a lightning rod for
protectionist and free-trade forces throughout its existence.
“The president’s action today is key in
stemming the tide of unfair foreign imports and putting steel workers back to
work,” says American Iron and Steel Institute ceo Thomas Gibson. “The
president’s commitment to addressing the steel crisis is already producing
benefits in Granite City, Illinois, where US Steel will be restarting one of
the blast furnaces that has been idle since December 2015 due to global excess
steel capacity and unfairly traded steel imports. With the signing today, the
steel industry can be on track to maintain our essential contributions to
national security and critical infrastructure like transportation, public
health and safety, energy and the power grid– all of which rely heavily on
steel.”
Critics of the 232 investigation and tariffs
have pointed to its potential to slow long-term manufacturing investment and
possibly spark retaliatory trade wars.
Source: Kallanish