President Donald Trump has announced the US will double its current tariff rate on steel imports from 25% to 50%.
Speaking at a rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Trump said the move would help boost the local steel industry and the national output, while decreasing reliance on China.
Trump also said that $14bn would be invested into the area’s steel production through a partnership between US Steel and Japan’s Nippon Steel. Details on the partnership are still unclear, though Trump has been touting the deal.
The announcement is the latest turn in Trump’s rollercoaster approach to tariffs since re-entering office in January.
“There will be no layoffs and no outsourcing whatsoever, and every US steel worker will soon receive a well deserved $5,000 bonus,” Trump told the crowd, filled with steelworkers, to raucous applause.
The president spent much of his remarks reflecting on how he “saved” US Steel, America’s biggest steel manufacturer, located in Pittsburgh, with his 25% tariffs on steel, which he implemented in 2018 during his first term as president. The increased 50% tariffs, Trump said, would ensure its survival.
“At 50%, they can no longer get over the fence,” he said.
The announcement comes amid a court battle over the legality over some of Trump’s global tariffs, which an appeals court has allowed to continue for now.
His import taxes on steel and aluminium were untouched by the lawsuit.
The tariffs have rocked global trade and markets. They have worsened relations between China and the US, the world’s two biggest global economies, and launched the countries into a tit-for-tat trade battle that could seemingly continue.
President Trump on Friday accused China of violating a truce they’d come to over tariffs earlier this month. China responded with its own accusations of US wrongdoing.
Washington and Beijing agreed to temporarily lower tit-for-tat tariffs after talks in Geneva.
But Trump said on Friday that China had “totally violated its agreement with us”. He did not give details but US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer later said China had not been removing non-tariff barriers as agreed under the deal.
Beijing’s response on Friday did not address the US claims directly but urged the US to “cease discriminatory restrictions against China”.
