Why Steel is About to Get Much More Expensive in the United States

By Robert Wenzel

Here comes more Neanderthal economic policy from the President.

President Trump is set to announce steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports Thursday — and he has told aides he wants 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum, Jennifer Jacobs, White House reporter for Bloomberg News, is reporting.

There could be others. Trump's said during a White House meeting with a bipartisan group of senators on February 13 that the administration could slap "substantial tariffs" on many different imports.

The Department of Commerce sent Trump three recommendations about possible actions designed to cut the amount of incoming metals.

A report from Bloomberg   Friday said Trump favored the harshest of these recommendations for steel: a 24% tariff on all imports, regardless of country.

In a follow-up report on Sunday, Jonathan Swan of Axios said Trump wanted to go even further, favoring a 25% tariff because it is a round number and "sounds better."

These types of policies could really hurt the economy long term.

Trump has already slapped tariffs on Canadian lumber and lumber prices are soaring. (They started the climb a bit in anticipation of the Trump tariff which he announced in mid-April  2017.)

Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher of  EconomicPolicyJournal.com and Target Liberty. He also writes EPJ Daily Alert and is author of The Fed Flunks: My Speech at the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Follow him on twitter:@wenzeleconomics and on LinkedIn. His youtube series is here: Robert Wenzel Talks Economics. The Robert Wenzel podcast is on  iphone and stitcher.

(Additional source Business Insider)

UPDATE

Trump has tweeted this out:

Our Steel and Aluminum industries (and many others) have been decimated by decades of unfair trade and bad policy with countries from around the world. We must not let our country, companies and workers be taken advantage of any longer. We want free, fair and SMART TRADE!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 1, 2018

UPDATE 2

Reports now indicate that no announcement will be made today as some White House officials, led by Gary Cohn, are attempting to get Trump to change his mind about implementing the tariffs.

UPDATE 3

Trump says he will institute tariffs next week on both steel and aluminum.

UPDATE 4

From the wires:

Trump says steel tariffs to be 25%, aluminum tariffs 10%.