Trump Imposes Tariffs On Steel And Aluminum To Protect National Security, Resolving Long-Standing Concern That American Manufacturers Were Obtaining Their Most Basic Raw Materials Too Cheaply

WASHINGTON. Surrounded by a carefully assembled group of steel and aluminum workers in the Roosevelt Room, President Donald J. Trump on Thursday signed two proclamations imposing a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum, resolving a long-standing concern that American factories had been acquiring the metal they are built from at prices they could afford.

The tariffs were issued under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, a provision permitting trade restrictions on national-security grounds, after a Commerce Department investigation concluded that imported metal posed a threat to the United States. Administration officials noted that the single largest foreign supplier of steel to the American market is Canada, a NATO treaty ally that shares the world's longest undefended border with the country it had been found to be endangering.

"If you don't have steel, you don't have a country," the President said at the signing, articulating a standard by which the United States had apparently not been a country for some time. He had earlier clarified the broader strategy on Twitter, explaining that "trade wars are good, and easy to win," a category of conflict he described as both desirable and effortless within the space of a single sentence.

Economists noted that while the proclamations would benefit the roughly 140,000 Americans employed in producing steel, they would raise input costs for the several million Americans employed by industries that purchase it, including automakers, appliance manufacturers, construction firms, and the companies that produce the cans Americans drink soda from. The administration characterized the overall arrangement as a victory, citing the portion of it that was.

Sources within the administration confirmed that the policy had been finalized over the objection of the President's chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, who reviewed the plan, recognized it as the plan, and resigned. His departure was described internally as evidence that the process had worked, in that it had successfully removed the person attempting to prevent the outcome.

At press time, the President was assuring a coalition of allied governments now lining up to request exemptions that the metal they sell America remained a grave threat to its security, though one he was prepared to negotiate.