President Donald Trump announced Friday evening that he is doubling the current 25% steel tariffs to 50% during a visit to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
“We are going to be imposing a 25% increase,” Trump said while speaking at U.S. Steel’s Mon Valley Works–Irvin Plant. “We’re going to bring it from 25% to 50%, the tariffs on steel into the United States of America, which will even further secure the steel industry in the United States.”
The announcement was made one day after a dramatic legal showdown that saw an appeals court reinstate Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs after two separate courts struck them down.
TRUMP TO VISIT US STEEL AMID QUESTIONS OVER HIS TARIFFS, ECONOMIC APPROACH
The surprise announcement came as Trump appeared in Pittsburgh to celebrate a deal between U.S. Steel and the Japanese company Nippon Steel.
“We’re here today to celebrate a blockbuster agreement that will ensure this storied American company stays an American company,” said Trump. “We’re going to have a great partner. And I have to tell you, Japan has been a tremendous friend of mine during my years as president, and then we had a little hiatus.”
The partnership is expected to create 70,000 jobs and add $14 billion to the American economy. Although Trump also claimed on Friday that “as part of this monumental commitment, Nippon will also invest $2.2 billion to increase steel production here in the Mon Valley.”
“You’re going to see that it will keep its headquarters in the great city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where it belongs,” said Trump.
Trump initially opposed the deal, as did former President Joe Biden, and promised to block the Japanese steelmaker from purchasing U.S. Steel. Under this deal, Nippon Steel will invest in the company but won’t outright own it.
The president also boasted that every U.S. steelworker will soon receive a well-deserved $5,000 bonus.
Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to reinvigorate manufacturing jobs in the U.S., with the original 25% levy on steel and aluminum imports announced in March meant to bolster the U.S. steel industry.
The tariffs were imposed by Trump’s Section 232 sectoral tariffs of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which were not struck down by the two separate courts that originally claimed Trump’s tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act were unlawful.
Wall Street experts and economists have warned that Trump’s affinity for tariffs, specifically his “Liberation Day” tariffs, will likely raise prices for the public. But the deal with Nippon Steel does mark a victory for Trump.
“My understanding is that many residents of southwestern Pennsylvania are supportive of the deal and the unions strongly supported it, so I think it is likely to be viewed more favorably than unfavorably in that part of the state,” said Berwood Yost, the director of Franklin & Marshall College’s Center for Opinion Research.
Naomi Lim contributed to this report.