US President Donald Trump has stated that the US will impose 25 percent import duty on steel and aluminum imports, on top of the existing 25 percent and 10 percent duties on the given products respectively, according to media reports. The move is considered as another step in Trump’s trade policy revision.
It is not yet clear whether the additional duties will apply to the products from trading partners with duty-free exemptions and tariff-rate quota agreements, including Canada, Mexico, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, the EU, Japan, and the UK. Speaking to the Turkish press about Trump’s latest statement, Veysel Yayan, secretary general of the Turkish Steel Producers’ Association, stated that Turkey is currently subject to a 25 percent duty, while some countries are exempt from this duty and, if the new duty is introduced additionally, the duty on Turkish steel in the US will double. Mr. Yayan said that the Turkish steel industry could gain an advantage if the new duty applies only to countries that are not subject to the current 25 percent duty. Some sources have told SteelOrbis that they think that nothing will change for Turkey and that the new duty will only be imposed on products from countries which are exempt from the current duties, as 80 percent of the steel imports arriving in the US come from the given countries.
In addition, Trump said that later this week he will announce reciprocal tariffs on all countries that impose duty on imports from the US. However, the countries that would be targeted were not specified. As SteelOrbis previously reported, China will impose 15 percent tariffs on coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US, while other goods such as crude oil, agricultural machinery and certain automotive imports from the US will be subject to 10 percent tariffs, effective as of today, February 10, in retaliation to 10 percent additional tariffs in the US on imports from China.
Meanwhile, in early February, Trump decided to postpone the recently announced additional 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico for 30 days, as SteelOrbis previously reported.