Trump to impose tariffs on steel

Aluminum imports also targeted; critics say move will raise prices.

Determined to protect vital American industries, President Donald Trump declared Thursday that he will impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, dramatically raising the possibility of a trade showdown with China and other key trading partners.

Trump summoned steel and aluminum executives to the White House and told them that next week he would levy penalties of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum imports. Those tariffs, he said, will remain for “a long period of time.” But it was not immediately clear if the tariffs would exempt certain trading partners.

“What’s been allowed to go on for decades is disgraceful,” Trump told them in the Cabinet Room.

Tariff supporters say the measure will protect U.S. steel-producing jobs as well as national security.

More than a month ago the U.S. Commerce Department gave the president the results of an investigation into steel and aluminum imports.

Trump has been weighing protective trade action under a rarely used ‘Section 232’ of the U.S. trade law, which allows for restrictions on imports to protect national security.

U.S. steel executives have been urging the president to take just such an action. The head of the American Iron and Steel Institute, a lobbying group of steel companies, including Middletown’s AK Steel, thanked Trump for his stance.

“We thank the president for meeting with our industry, and following through on his commitment to addressing the steel crisis. Foreign steel imports surged again in 2017 — up 15 percent from the previous year and capturing 27 percent of the U.S. market. About one fourth of domestic steel capacity today is not being utilized,” Thomas Gibson, AISI president and chief executive, said.

Skeptics have countered that steel tariffs will raise steel prices, hurting steel-consuming companies like Caterpillar and GE, who are also big Ohio employers.

“These proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports couldn’t come at a worse time,” said Cody Lusk, president and CEO of the American International Automobile Dealers Association. “Auto sales have flattened in recent months, and manufacturers are not prepared to absorb a sharp increase in the cost to build cars and trucks in America.”

The Ohio steel industry employs more than 10,000 workers, including more than 2,400 at AK Steel.