Tariffs imposed:
President Trump is unswayed by his own party in announcing levies against some imports.
WASHINGTON — Unswayed by Republican warnings of a potential trade war, President Trump on Thursday ordered steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to the U.S., vowing to fight back against an “assault on our country” by foreign competitors. The president said he would exempt Canada and Mexico while negotiating for changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The tariffs are to take effect March 23, with Canada and Mexico indefinitely exempted “to see if we can make the deal,” Trump said. NAFTA talks are expected to resume early next month.
“The American aluminum and steel industry has been ravaged by aggressive foreign trade practices,” Trump said at the White House. “It’s really an assault on our country. It’s been an assault.”
American steel and aluminum workers have long been betrayed, but “that betrayal is now over,” Trump said.
As he has indicated previously, Trump said he would levy tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum. But he said during a Cabinet meeting earlier in the day that the penalties would “have a right to go up or down depending on the country and I’ll have a right to drop out countries or add countries. I just want fairness.”
Business leaders, meanwhile, continued to sound the alarm about the potential economic fallout from tariffs, with the specter of a global trade war raised. Tom Donohue, the president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said a trade war would endanger the economic momentum from the GOP tax cuts and Trump’s rollback of regulations.
“We urge the administration to take this risk seriously,” Donohue said.
Trump suggested in a Cabinet meeting Thursday that Australia and “other countries” might also be spared, a shift that could soften the international blow amid threats of retaliation by trading partners.
“We’re going to be very fair, we’re going to be very flexible but we’re going to protect the American worker as I said I would do in my campaign,” Trump said.
People briefed on the plans ahead of the announcement said all countries affected by the tariffs would be invited to negotiate with the administration to be exempted from the tariffs if they can address the threat their exports pose to U.S. manufacturers. The exemptions for Canada and Mexico could be ended if talks to renegotiate NAFTA stall.
Congressional Republicans and business groups are bracing for the impact of the tariffs.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, appearing at a session with Home Depot employees in Atlanta, said ahead of Trump’s announcement, “I’m just not a fan of broad-based, across-theboard tariffs.” He pointed to the store’s many products that contain steel and aluminum.
On Wednesday, more than 100 House Republicans wrote Trump, asking him to reconsider “the idea of broad tariffs to avoid unintended negative consequences” to the U.S. economy and workers.
Sen. Jeff Flake, a R-Ariz., said he plans to introduce legislation to nullify the tariffs.