Tariff madness continues. 
Steel Tariffs Will Double
Insistent that US manufacturers who use steel will pay still more, especially the auto industry and small businesses, Trump Says Steel and Aluminum Tariffs Will Double to 50%
President Trump said he would double tariffs on imported steel, a move he said would bolster the domestic industry and protect U.S. jobs.
Trump announced the higher duties at a rally near Pittsburgh promoting a $14 billion deal between Tokyo-based Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel, which the president said would ensure U.S. control over the storied steelmaker.
“There’s never been a $14 billion investment in the history of the steel industry in the United States,” Trump said Friday evening before several hundred steelworkers in hard hats and a backdrop of giant steel coils in a cavernous U.S. Steel mill. “Most importantly, U.S. Steel will continue to be controlled by the U.S.A.”
Trump said tariffs on imported steel, as well as aluminum, would increase to 50% from the current 25%, effective June 4. Global prices for steel have been falling in recent months, making it easier for steel buyers to pay the existing duty on imports and still acquire steel at a discount to domestic prices.
The higher tariff also will give domestic steelmakers more power to raise prices. Steel demand and prices have been cooling since April.
However, Trump’s move risks angering U.S. trading partners. The European Union said the tariff increase undermines its ongoing trade negotiations with the U.S. and could trigger retaliatory tariffs. “The EU is prepared to impose countermeasures, including in response to the latest U.S. tariff increase,” a spokesman said.
We still do not have all the details of the Nippon-US Steel merger but I am certain they are better than if the Cleveland Cliffs counter-proposal was accepted.
That aside, higher prices is the last thing US automakers need or small businesses need.
The US does not even make some of the steel small businesses need. If that is still the case after the Nippon deal, Trump will drive those small businesses out of business.
Related Posts
February 10, 2025: Trump to Impose 25 Percent Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum, Expect Higher Prices
All US consumers of steel and aluminum will pay higher prices, especially the automakers.
February, 11, 2025: Trump’s Steel Tariffs Now Will Work as Good as the First Time
Q: How’s that? A: Very poorly.
March 13, 2025: The Amazing “Success” of Trump’s 2018 Aluminum Tariffs in One Picture
I hope you can take a bit of headline sarcasm because the true story follows.
… until somebody yells ‘boo!’ at him, and he drops the tariff and slinks away.
Again.
he’s mad about TACO
he’s mad that the airplane was revealed to be something he begged for
he’s mad that the week after his big ME tour, the major ME countries he visited entered into a long-term economic bloc agreement with ASEAN and China
If he’s truly mad at TACO he won’t chicken out this time…just to prove a point. But if the market tanks (futures are down as I type this) his recent history suggests he will reverse this within days…and try to make it seem like a big W.
What he is really mad about is that mommy and daddy ignored him when he was a little baby boy. Ultimate study of a psychological and emotional infant
There are far more people employed in US manufacturing businesses that consume steel and aluminum than there are working in the production of steel and aluminum. Trump’s 50% steel and aluminum tariffs are sacrificing a lot of jobs to try to save a few.
The US imports 20-30% of its steel (varies year to year) and almost 50% of its aluminum.
Most steel imports are varieties that we can’t produce here competitively.
Aluminum is far worse. We have declined from 33 aluminum producers to 4 in the last 40 years. It will take a decade to add more production. And we would have to create a lot of new electricity generation at the same time since aluminum production is a huge consumer of electricity.
AI is also a huge consumer of electricity. One AI data center can consume as much power as a large city or a small state.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/us-aluminium-smelters-vie-with-big-tech-scarce-power-andy-home-2025-05-22/#:~:text=And%20it%20needs%20a%20lot,city%20the%20size%20of%20Boston.
We are not going to be able to generate the power that we need for AI, let alone Aluminum. There are no new nuclear plants planned. Coal is too expensive. Natural gas generation is our best option, but we don’t have enough of it. Another choice is more renewables but Trump is trying to kill those. So we are stuck. We can’t generate enough power to produce more aluminum, let alone a lot of AI data centers.
“Most steel imports are varieties that we can’t produce here competitively.”
Examples please. Maybe so today, but probably a lot less so 3-5 years from now.
With the Trump’s rollback in regulations, coal is NOT going to be expensive. In fact, we very well may see a slowdown in the decommissioning of coal plants over the next 5-7 years.
Most importantly, you have companies like Helion Energy who are going to deliver incredible advances in fusion over the next 2-3 years.
As for nuclear, there won’t be another $30B monolithic nuclear plant built in the USA. It’s all going to be SMRs and Trump is already fast tracking this stuff. Here’s the current list I’m tracking & investing in.
Aalo Atomics – private
Antares Nuclear – private
Kairos – Google, private
Last Energy – private
Natura Resources, private
Newcleo – France, private
NNE – Nano Nuclear
Oklo – Sam Altman
Radiant Industries, private, Kaleidos
SMR – NuScale
Terrapower – Bill Gates, private
Terrestrial Energy, private
Type One Energy
X-energy – Amazon, private
Westinghouse, eVinci
I’m with Jamie Dimon. We need to stock up on guns, ammo & REMs instead of Bitcoin.
The U.S. imports various types of steel that are either not produced domestically or not available in sufficient quantities. Some of the key types include:
– **Specialty and Alloy Steels** – Certain high-performance steels, such as tool steel and stainless steel, are often imported due to specific manufacturing requirements.
– **Flat-Rolled Steel** – Some varieties of flat-rolled steel, used in automotive and appliance manufacturing, are sourced from international suppliers.
– **Long Products** – These include steel bars and rods, which are sometimes imported to meet demand in construction and infrastructure projects.
– **Steel Pipe and Tubing** – The U.S. imports specialized steel pipes and tubes for industries like oil and gas.
The U.S. sources steel from countries like Canada, Brazil, Mexico, and South Korea [A](https://www.steelradar.com/en/the-us-steel-import-table-how-much-steel-does-it-import-from-the-countries-it-has-imposed-tariffs-on/?copilot_analytics_metadata=eyJldmVudEluZm9fY2xpY2tEZXN0aW5hdGlvbiI6Imh0dHBzOlwvXC93d3cuc3RlZWxyYWRhci5jb21cL2VuXC90aGUtdXMtc3RlZWwtaW1wb3J0LXRhYmxlLWhvdy1tdWNoLXN0ZWVsLWRvZXMtaXQtaW1wb3J0LWZyb20tdGhlLWNvdW50cmllcy1pdC1oYXMtaW1wb3NlZC10YXJpZmZzLW9uXC8iLCJldmVudEluZm9fY29udmVyc2F0aW9uSWQiOiJIeG84ZUUzWDNkZGF0cXYxY3IxWmkiLCJldmVudEluZm9fbWVzc2FnZUlkIjoic2FvQmR4ajFCRXRkaG44R1hKOE4xIiwiZXZlbnRJbmZvX2NsaWNrU291cmNlIjoiY2l0YXRpb25MaW5rIn0%3D&citationMarker=9F742443-6C92-4C44-BF58-8F5A7C53B6F1). If you want to explore detailed import data, you can check out the [U.S. Steel Import Monitor](https://www.trade.gov/data-visualization/us-steel-import-monitor).
thanks for those links PD
My pleasure. I was aware that the US oil and gas industry used a fair bit of specialized imported steel.
Wow, what kind of ignoramus downvotes someone who is providing objective info for other’s DD, on request? What a small world you dwell in.
Watch as Trump allows for specific steel tariff exemptions.
You, me & everyone knows they’re coming.
What’s missing from your analysis is the pricing data.
You say this foreign steel costs less, and I’m certainly inclined to believe you. Anything we import from China has to be replaced by other sources ASAP. Trump & the US industries that use this stell understand this.
But again, how much cheaper is all of this foreign sourced steel?
5%, 10%, 30%, 50%, 100% or more?
Cheaper by 100% or more?
Are you suffering from a head injury? Love it – steel that comes in free or I get paid to take the product! Does that mean that trump has us pay an inverse tariff to the foreign manufacturer to receive the more than 100% off product?
Thanks again for the laughs!
😉
US Coal use has been in decline for decades. In spite of Trump’s attempts in his first term to boost coal, the decline accelerated. I do not expect coal use to expand during his second term. Perhaps he will manage to hold it steady at best.
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-coal-ce3cff43eaa8736d0e476154fe09c67c#
SMRs are not going to save us. They are simply too expensive and too far away to make a difference anytime soon. The first SMRs won’t be available till after 2030.
We will have to rely on natural gas and renewables to meet our growing demand for electricity in the next 5 years.
If Trump’s energy policies take hold, coal plant operators will slow down the rate of retirement. That’s a reasonable & safe bet.
You nor I have any idea how expensive SMRs will be once each company that’s designing, building & deploying them get’s past #1.
Again, if Trump’s energy policies take root, it’s a safe bet that SMRs will be widely deployed & reasonably affordable in 10 years.
Within 10 years, 2-3 American companies will have cracked the fusion nut & will have at least 1-3 reactors deployed.
It’s like the Fed. Don’t bet against the energy industry delivering the next big things. You’re a big energy guy, so you know this very well.
Yes, natural gas will be very important for another 30 years before it starts to go into decline.
Solar is way overhyped in my opinion. It has to be replaced / updated every 20-25 years or so and is subject to substantial environmental damage
Just like batteries, hydrogen is the final answer for the transportation system & will start to make an impact in about 20 years. Batteries are a bridge to hydrogen just like solar is a bridge to fusion.
Hydrogen & fusion are the future of American energy.
Trump’s policies won’t make much of a difference.
I know that the cost projections for smrs keep going up faster than the companies involved would like, and the timelines for their implementation keeps being extended further and further into the future.
We have been using smrs in subs and other navy vessels since the 1950s. That’s 70 years of time to get this technology ready for commercial use. Yet we have zero commercial smrs so far and none expected till the next decade. Because we can’t figure out how to make them cost effective.
China is currently building 28 conventional nuclear power reactors. In contrast they have just one smr that is undergoing tests. They have been working on that smr since 2019. Much like our companies, they can’t figure out how to make them cost effective either. Which is why they are focusing on building conventional reactors.
Hydrogen is going nowhere. It will take decades before hydrogen has an impact. It is not an energy source. It is merely an energy storage mechanism. And we cannot afford to build it out.
Fusion remains decades away. As it has for the last 4 decades.
In addition to natural gas, and conventional nuclear – solar, onshore wind, and batteries are the future for the next few decades.
SMR – NuScale – – – good company! We agree on something!
🙂
All Trump issues come down to one thing, he is mentally ill. Trump has got to go.
Importers of US steel and aluminum products will of course retaliate.
Steel is not an item, but a category.
Imports & exports are often not like products.
The simplest solution would of course be to ban all steel, set up a Steel Enforcement Agency. A war on steel.
nixon used young, rummy and cheney to run the price control board.
Retaliation will come, but on other targeted products from the U.S.
IMO, our steel is far too expensive to be globally competitive, I doubt there are many people importing steel from the U.S.
It is a dirty industry best relegated to third world nations with overpopulation issues or without any care for the environment
here we see why and how this uneducated clown went bankrupt 6 times. he has not one iota of business sense. looks as if hes fulfilling his part in destroying the u.s. economy.
That’s what happens when the courts back Trump into a corner. He will fight to the end. No matter how many times the courts strip him of his power he will find a way to get what he wants. That’s what Trump does.
Unfortunately, the solution becomes less and less effective and efficient as the courts try to stuff him.
he wanted a wall. never got it. he wants only one thing. being in the headlines each day and night with the most viewership. trade war means potentially 8 billion viewership.
You are correct. He wants all eyes on him and the media and many others play along. He absolutely controls the narrative and the markets. No one is more powerful than Trump.
powerful is not the correct analysis. Xi is much more powerful. trump is an entertainer. most of the us population and world are basically ignoring his schizo edicts. he’s a buffoon clown funny entertainer. of a dying empire.
So powerful that he is also your portfolio manager. Unless you rather invest with the powerful Xi😭
powerful? as an egomaniac celebrity? hardly what is best for the economy.
CORRECT. he is trying to be POWERFUL destroyer world trade and profits……….all for the lime lights.
If he had power he would not have to rescind every tariff he puts on and would not have become the waffling, word salad laughing stock of international politics.
Poor old narcissistic bastard wet his bed again last night. Next investment he will be promoting is “Depends”.
Meanwhile our economy heads into the deep ends of survivability.
the courts are following the laws something trump is clueless about. being a geriatric toddler he is dumber than a box of rocks. “fight” he doesn’t fight he whines to get his way. the potus has no power.
Trump is running the country like he used to run his casinos, putting random (tariff) bets in a clueless fashion on whatever comes to his mind. That said, the people who should in the end be held accountable are those who enable this economic madness.
people being held accountable is a fantasy in a crumbling evil empire. perhaps we can get some sick and twisted joy in knowing many ultra maga supporters and their sons and daughters…… will end up overdosing on meth or living under highways begging for fentanyl money…….NOT ME. i wish no harm to anyone, including TACO. the man needs a long rest and psychological help in a rehab facility.
The voter who elected Trump enables this economic madness
Adam Smith in the “Wealth of Nations” gave three instances where tariffs could be beneficial.
1) National defense
2) Retaliation against foreign trade practices but only in order to pressure them to move towards free trade
3) Infant industry fostering but only rarely and carefully.
Both Trump 1, Biden and Trump 2 administrations have been following these measures and the administrations coming after will continue this trend.
On the other hand David Ricardo’s ideas are not at all being even considered certainly because his idea of comparative advantage doesn’t work well in the world today. It never really worked well in Ricardo’s world either and the adoption of his ideas in the UK marked UK’s high point. After that it was downhill.
The world is an imperfect place and it’s better to recognize it rather than burying your head in the sand.
adam smith plagiarized, wealth of nations. 3 pages in republic of plato, is the whole door stop book. many things in small doses can have some slight beneficial good. trump is a nihilist and narcissist who cares about only one thing. so start there. first principles. the rest of your analysis ain’t worth jack in light of reality of pax dumbfuckistan in 2025. a world wide idiotic and asshole empire bombing anyone who dares trade with folks we don’t like. gaza to yemen to iraq and libya and afpak………
https://x.com/DavidEngels12/status/1637004766948515843/photo/1
And that’s why tariffs will be a big mart of America’s trade strategy under Trump. Like it or not, he’s seeking transformational change. He realizes there are all sorts of strategic goods that the US must ramp up production of during his last term.
We don’t need to decouple from China making our XMas toys, but REM, steel, pharma, electronics, and all sorts of other really important, national security goods will need all sorts of different policies to meet Trump’s long-term goal.
It won’t be easy and breaking past trade deals, for example, are not easy to swallow, but America will be better off by doing things radically different with much greater speed. We can’t take 2-5 years to do future trade deals. This stuff needs to be measured in months.
Agreed
Isolationist nation? Is that trumps goal?
No wonder he is failing so badly and changes his mind as often as he has to pee.
Three accurate I words describing trump:
Isolationist
Incompetent
Incontinent
I think he could bankrupt a Taco truck in Tucson…
😉
Trump is becoming the laughing stock taco boy of the entire world.
This tariff today that tariff tomorrow, he takes the tariff back, imposes another because he wet himself again.
Trumps accomplishments so far are:
Who does trump work for?
Not America or Americans, that is for sure.
He loves the word tariff.
“Who does trump work for?”
I sure as hell know that he’s not working for you.
You can take that to the bank, Frosty / President Musk.
I characterize Trump’s tactics as “hostage situation for all, in all directions.” He sits in the middle of the road obstructing everything, and making our capital and labor and everyone else a hostage to his staged situation. Everyone would just like a clean playing field, or just a sensible one, but no. The one thing he definitely succeeds in, is capturing attention, in this phony attention economy. Meanwhile his ultimatum is so garbled and inconsistent, nobody can really reliably reckon what he wants, or how to satisfy it for any sanely planned future. So they will take their resources and leave the game, or rather, switch gameboards for one remotely sane, if less palatable than what ours was. It is the opposite of businesslike thinking for one situated, as he is, at the nexus of global commerce. It is the most efficient way to remove the USA from that nexus: introduce personalized chaos. The only emergency (his main claimed basis for his tariffs) is him. I have long studied societies in decline, am now starting to see distinct contours of a hastened USA decline. And no, I’m not saying Biden or the preceding situation was Nirvana. Just because the new plumber can halfway diagnose a problem doesn’t mean he has the skills to fix it.
100% correct. but one little item not worth spit. trump is a nihilist and narcissist. so he doesn’t care about anything, the nihilist, but being in the limelight, the narcissist.
Trump has this blinkered view of a world of winners and losers, so he plays a disorderly whack-a-mole with distributing burdens. Meanwhile investment capital will at best stay on the sidelines, but its impatience mean it will head elsewhere. Who knows who comes into his sight next, and for how long?
I believe his goal is to actually make the traditional rich very poor by changing the monetary system. This is how other autocrats are thinking these days. It isn’t about preserving anything. It is about controlling everything. Once the US monetary system changes to some crypto, the 1% will become poor overnight and there will only be the top 0.1%.
for sure the usd is being debauched to where it becomes like what happens in so many nations in history. italian lira. argentina………so it is the top percent sliver of one percenters.
America has some differences, 2nd amendment, Americans own more firearms than citizens of any other country. Add to that the recent invention of the small drone bomb and the public becomes a very formidable force. If I were a politician I’d keep that in mind. God help them if MAGA ever wakes up to how they have been deceived. MAGA is collectively stupid enough to do anything.
he’s insane. like the majority of voters. hat tip to democracy. please TACO donald, jerk us around some more, until we jerk off.
Granite City IL impact unclear after Trump announces U.S. Steel-Nippon “partnership”BY Gregg Palermo and Associated Press
UPDATED 6:15 PM CT May. 23, 2025
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/san-antonio/news/2025/05/23/us-steel-announcement-granite-city
TSMC had to import staff to build fabs in the US.
Will Nippon Steel need to import management to make the works viable, too?
Mish you should embed this into everyone of your posts.
https://www.usdebtclock.org/
$36.9 trillion already. Damn… LOL! It was $36.7 trillion the last time I looked at it and that was just the other day.
Congress has already been sold out. Whats the recourse for citizens ? America is literally for everyone but Americans.
Same stage different actors. What do you think the British Empire was a hundred years ago? Before that the Spanish or Dutch or French or Roman or choose your own time frame and empire.
80% of the wealth has always been controlled by 20% of the population. You want change, move to the 20% and leave the 80% behind.
Next question.
I suppose you are part of the 20 %. Or maybe you’re part of the dastardly 1%. Pay some more taxes man. You stinking rich piss me off. So high and mighty. Move to Venezuela 🇻🇪. You can maybe get Maduro to be your best friend just before he sticks a knife in to your gut. Grow up dude
Why do the rich piss you off? You likely work for one of them, they provide capital which gives you a job. Socialism doesn’t work anywhere but keep at it and live miserably for the rest of your life.
Why would I move to Venezuela and the proven failure of socialism which is what you seem to be advocating. Try to use that brain and think.
Im in the 20%. You are talking about the 0.5%.
If you’re in the 20% then WTF are you complaining about? You want everyone on earth to have an “equal” share? That means you’ll be miserable and a communist.
“The US have the best government that money can buy.” (Mark Twain)
We are definitely heading in a Twain-era direction, also perhaps pre-Adam Smith era. Who knows what murky daydreams of a cuckooland that never happened, Trump’s aspirations key to.
It is not just the USA; it is all around the world.
We’ll see how much of Trump’s grand master tariff plan is left in tatters soon enough.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-tariffs-face-threat-at-supreme-court-over-rulings-that-blocked-biden/ar-AA1FQuev
During Biden’s presidency, the court’s conservative majority ruled that federal agencies can’t decide sweeping political and economic matters without clear congressional authorization. That blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from setting deep limits on power-plant pollution and the Education Department from slashing student loans for 40 million people.
The concept — known as the “major questions doctrine” — is now playing a central role in the case against Trump’s unilateral imposition of worldwide import taxes. With Supreme Court review all but inevitable, the justices’ willingness to employ the doctrine against Trump may determine the fate of his signature economic initiative.
SCOTUS’s willingness to say anything Trump does in the scope of his job is immune from criminal liability, thus opening a cavernous path to shameless cash-and-carry corruption now blossoming before our eyes in the middle of this mess (and I’m not saying there was never corruption before, but this is a historic spike), gives me extreme pause to believe it will comport with common sense this time around.
Canadian steel production is owned by Cleveland Cliffs a US company. They bought both Stelco and Arcelor Mattel, the two dominant Canadian producers. Canadian steel supplying the US is just a branch industry. I wonder if President Trump even knows that ? All that he is doing is driving jobs out of small business in USA by driving up pricing and making them non competitive globally.
There is a Cleveland Cliffs sign on our local steel mill. The sign is the only thing that is not rusted and abandoned. Cleveland Cliffs has done nothing for the steel industry in the United States.
I think by now, stock traders have learned to time their trades based on Trump’s announcements, because Trump is bound to reverse things a day or two later.
The problem is, the market has become so used to Trump flip flopping, each time he reverses course it has diminished impact on the markets.
Pretty soon Trump will be “shooting someone on Fifth Avenue” to try to move the markets but the market will just ignore him.
Can’t wait for TACO Tuesday.
Make short selling great again.
Trump absolutely controls the markets like no one ever.
I thought the Cleveland deal was 7MM; and that was a bunch of “wink-wink” with Sleepy Joe. !4 MM seems a lot better of a deal.