Duties of 25 percent on steel and aluminum will flow through to car buyers, beer drinkers, home builders, oil drillers and other users of metal goods.
America has seen this movie before: President Trump, who imposed stiff tariffs on Monday on imported steel and aluminum, did so once before, in 2018. So domestic industries have a pretty good idea of how the story ends. 20Cr steel bar
Manufacturers of trucks, appliances and construction equipment scramble to find U.S. sources of metal inputs, keeping steel and aluminum producers busier than they were before. Companies that need specific alloys that aren’t made domestically are forced to pay more. Prices rise, making end products more expensive.
But there may be plot twists along the way. Will Mr. Trump cut deals with some countries, allowing large shipments in without the new duties? Will he set up a process to give companies a reprieve if they can demonstrate a hardship? (On Monday, a White House official said there would be no exclusions.)
All of those could affect the outcome, which is why steel users are proceeding with caution before the metal tariffs take effect on March 12. Angela Holt, who runs a precision machining company and heads the board of the Indiana Manufacturers Association, says the potential impacts on businesses are “complex.”
“It could affect not only the cost but the availability, depending on their situation,” Ms. Holt said. “It’s highly varied, even among industries — I think it’s going to depend on an individual basis where they source their materials, what the competition looks like.”
Although the American steel and aluminum industries are far weaker than they were in their heyday in the 1970s, U.S. companies import only about 26 percent of the steel they use, according to the International Trade Administration, and that number has been falling.
Producer price indices show a slight increase after tariffs were imposed in 2018, but lockdowns and increased demand for goods made a bigger impact two years later. March 2018, when earlier tariffs went into effect, is set to 100.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
By The New York Times
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