Unswayed by warnings, Trump orders trade tariffs

protectionism will impede U.S. economic growth. The president made his announcement the same day that officials from 11 other Pacific Rim countries signed a sweeping trade agreement that came together after he pulled the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership last year.

Though he focused on workers and their companies in his announcement, Trump’s legal proclamation made a major point that weakened steel and aluminum industries represent a major threat to America’s military strength and national security.

The former real estate developer said U.S. politicians had for years lamented the decline in the steel and aluminum industries but no one before him was willing to take action.

Despite a week of furious lobbying against his plan by Republican lawmakers and some of his own advisers, Trump said he would go ahead with penalty tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum. But he also said the penalties could “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.”

Century Aluminum Chief Executive Michael Bless said the tariffs would allow his company, which produces high-purity aluminum used in military aircraft, to recall about 300 workers and restart idled production lines at its smelter in eastern Kentucky by early 2019. And Trump took note of U.S. Steel’s announcement that it planned to ramp up activity at its plant in Granite City, Illinois, and recall about 500 employees because of the new tariffs.

But there was political criticism aplenty, especially from Trump’s own Republican Party.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, appearing with Home Depot employees in Atlanta, warned of “unintended consequences.” And Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin called the tariffs “a very risky action” that could put agricultural and manufacturing jobs at risk.

“I’m not sure there are any winners in trade wars,” said Johnson, who once ran a plastics manufacturing business in his home state.

Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said Trump’s action was “like dropping a bomb on a flea” and could carry “huge unintended consequences for American manufacturers who depend on imported materials.”

Business leaders, too, sounded their alarm about the potential economic fallout, warning that American consumers would be hurt by higher prices. They noted that steel-consuming companies said tariffs imposed in 2002 by President George W. Bush ended up wiping out 200,000 U.S. jobs.

“Tariffs are taxes, and the American taxpayer will pay the cost of a trade war,” said Cody Lusk, president and CEO of the American International Automobile Dealers Association. “Even with limited exemptions, tariffs will raise the sale prices of new vehicles.”