President Donald Trump on Monday imposed a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports into the United States with no exceptions or exemptions.

Although the United States gets most of its steel from Canada, Brazil and Mexico, the tariffs are largely — albeit indirectly — aimed at China.

“This is a big deal — making America rich again,” Trump said in announcing the tariffs, according to a pool report.

America imports very little steel directly from China, by far the world’s largest producer of steel. Steel tariffs of 25% launched in Trump’s first administration and continued by former President Joe Biden resulted in American importers shifting to other sources.

Yet Chinese steel does make its way into the United States secondhand. Some is purchased by foreign countries and reshipped to the US. And some of it is mislabeled and resold through various channels.

The United States is not the manufacturing-focused economy it once was, but it still consumes tens of millions of tons of steel and aluminum a year. Steel is a key component of everything from consumer goods such as cars and appliances to such large scale infrastructure projects, such as skyscrapers, oil rigs and pipelines, bridges and roads. Aluminum also is a key components of such goods as cans of food and beverages, cars and commercial jets, as well as and key infrastructure such as high power electrical lines.

Tariffs could increase the cost of production of many if not all of those items because of the increased cost of the imported and domestic steel – and aluminum makers could raise the price of their products because of the reduced competition from low-priced imports.

The weight and cost of shipping steel and aluminum have always given domestic producers something of a edge on import sources. American steel mills produce about three times as much steel as is imported here.

When the Trump administration put tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum in place in 2018, it briefly cut imports and increased domestic production. But many customers of imported steel and aluminum still found it necessary to import those goods from lower priced producers elsewhere. Those actions also ignited a trade war that hit American goods with retaliatory tariffs that raised prices on other items for consumers.

Some buyers who had been purchasing steel from countries hit with tariffs, such as China, shifted to steelmakers in other markets, such as Canada, which is now the largest source of American steel imports with about 23% of the steel shipped here. China has fallen to 10th place, with less than 2% of steel exports here.

Steel imports fell by 10.2 million tons, or 27%, between 2017, the year before the tariffs, and 2019, according to analysis of government data provided by the American Iron and Steel Institute, an industry trade group. Domestic steel production rose, but only by 6.8 million tons, or 7.5%.

The boost in domestic steel production proved short lived. Both domestic production and imports fell in 2020 as the pandemic cut the demand for steel greatly. While it has come part of the way back since then, domestic production has still not reached the pre-tariffs level of 2017, let alone the pre-pandemic output.

A Trump administration official said the new tariffs on steel, though holding at 25%, were designed to eliminate loopholes and numerous exemptions that have led some importers to game the system. For example, the official said some countries will import semifinished steel, make it into a slightly more finished product, and ship that to the United States to skirt tariffs.

While aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump told reporters he was planning the steel and aluminum announcement and that he intended to hold a news conference this week to introduce new reciprocal tariffs.

Just last week, Trump imposed a 10% tariff on all Chinese imports to the US, adding to existing tariffs on China. In retaliation, China quickly imposed tariffs on certain chips and metals.

Trump has, however, started easing some of these measures, including pausing tariffs on goods valued at $800 or less coming into the US until the Commerce Department can develop a tracking system. He has also suspended his 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada until at least March 1.

This story has been updated with additional context and developments.

NEWS FROM: CNN WORLD

On Friday afternoon, around the same time a delegation of senior Canadian officials was preparing to meet with President Donald’s Trump’s border czar in a bid to stave off withering new tariffs, Trump himself essentially told them from afar: Don’t bother.

“No,” he said when asked by a reporter in the Oval Office if there was anything Canada, Mexico or China could do to forestall the new tariffs he’d promised to apply by February 1. “Not right now.”

Twenty-four hours later, he made good.

From his Mar-a-Lago club on Saturday — after a round of golf nearby — Trump signed new 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, along with lower 10% tariffs on China, setting the stage for a continental trade war among the United States’ top trading partners. Included in his order is a retaliation clause — all but guaranteeing the tariff rates could rise, given both Mexico and Canada have vowed reprisals.

After threatening for months to impose steep tariffs on the United States’ neighbors, Trump’s decision to impose the stiff new duties should hardly come as a surprise. Still, until the final hours before Trump’s start-of-month deadline, many on Wall Street and on Capitol Hill – not to mention in Ottawa and Mexico City – held out hope he might back off.

The delegation of senior Canadian officials had been in Washington for several days, meeting with various administration officials – including border czar Tom Homan – to try to avert the imposition of 25% tariffs on all Canadian goods that Trump had promised for February 1.

Traveling across Washington armed with videos and documents showing a reinforced US-Canada border, Canadian foreign minister Mélanie Joly hoped to demonstrate the steps her country had taken to fulfill Trump’s demands that more be done to stop flows of illegal immigration.

Yet it has never been particularly clear what Canada and Mexico could do specifically to avoid the new tariffs – least of all to those country’s negotiators, who spent most of January working to ascertain what, if anything, they could do to appease Trump’s demands.

By the time Trump signed the tariffs Saturday afternoon, a top aide suggested nothing less than a complete stop in illegal immigration and an end to US fentanyl deaths would satisfy Trump’s demands.

“There’s going to be a wide range of metrics. In Donald Trump’s golden age, we will have only legal immigration, and we will have zero Americans dying from Chinese slash Mexican slash Canadian fentanyl,” the White House official said.

And at the end of a week that saw the first major retreat of Trump’s second administration – on a budget office order to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans, which was rescinded after widespread confusion and chaos – there was little question in the minds of many Trump allies that he would follow through on his tariff pledge in some capacity.

“We’re not looking for a concession,” Trump said Friday in the Oval Office. “We’ll just see what happens.”

Trump’s declaration he wasn’t looking for concessions hardly seemed like the final word on the matter. When he first warned in November of his plans to levy tariffs, he said they would “remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”

Fulfilling a MAGA campaign pledge

Saturday’s moves are likely to thrust open a new trade battle, one being waged on issues that have little to do with trade itself. Instead, Trump appears intent on using tariffs as a weapon to enact his domestic policies: curbing flows of undocumented migrants and drugs into the United States.

Few inside the White House ever believed Trump would let his own February 1 deadline come and go without doing anything.

Tariffs, after all, are one of the few policies Trump has consistently supported for decades, a rare through-line from his days as a New York developer to his time in public office (another is immigration). As a candidate, he swore he’d use tariffs – “the most beautiful word in the dictionary” – to wield US leverage abroad.

Well before he was officially sworn in, Trump offered little indication he would back away from his threats. Business executives hoping to talk him out of his plans got little traction, and Trump advisers bluntly said the president was unlikely to alter course.

A 12-hour episode last weekend also proved illustrative for the president and his team. After the president imposed crushing tariffs on Colombia following its president’s refusal to accept repatriation flights of deportees on military planes, the country retreated almost immediately. The quick back-down demonstrated the effectiveness of tariffs as a negotiating tool, officials said.

Saturday’s tariffs amount to a starting gun on what could escalate into a global trade war, with the potential for higher costs, disrupted supply chains and a loss of jobs. The duties he approved Saturday have a lower 10% rate on Canadian energy, a tacit acknowledgement that the tariffs could lead to higher gas prices. Even Trump acknowledged the potential for adverse consequences on American consumers.

“There could be some temporary, short-term disruption, and people will understand that,” Trump said Friday when pressed by reporters on the cost of tariffs being passed on to importers, and, by extension, consumers. “But the tariffs are going to make us very rich and very strong – and we’re going to treat other countries very fairly.”

Saturday’s tariffs are unlikely to be Trump’s last. The president said himself said in the Oval Office that additional tariffs could come by mid-February on chips, pharmaceuticals, steel, aluminum, copper, oil and gas imports – along with tariffs on the European Union – all threats that few would discount given his willingness to follow through on the North American and China tariffs on Saturday.

Trump himself said in the Oval Office that additional tariffs could come by mid-February on chips, pharmaceuticals, steel, aluminum, copper, oil and gas imports – along with tariffs on the European Union – all threats that few would discount given his willingness to follow through on the North American and China tariffs on Saturday.

Internal disagreement about tariff strategy

Inside the White House, key advisers had advocated for a tough approach in an early demonstration of Trump’s willingness to follow through on one of his top campaign pledges: to use tariffs as a cudgel in order to extract concessions, even from top US allies.

Howard Lutnick, Trump’s incoming commerce secretary and former top executive at the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, had been a key supporter of the maximalist tariff approach, according to people familiar with the matter. Stephen Miller, the influential deputy chief of staff with a broad policy remit, had been another top advocate within the West Wing for a muscular opening salvo in Trump’s tariff policy.

Still, even Lutnick acknowledged during his Senate confirmation hearings this week that offramps existed for Canada and Mexico to avoid the harsh duties Trump had promised.

“If we are your biggest trading partner, show us the respect. Shut your border and end fentanyl coming into this country. So it is not a tariff per se; it is an action of domestic policy,” Lutnick said.

“If they execute it, there will be no tariff,” he said.

Not all of Trump’s economic advisers appeared quite as hawkish. Market-minded officials like Scott Bessent, Trump’s Treasury secretary, have advocated for a softer approach. Specifically, Bessent advocated for starting tariffs at 2.5% and gradually increasing them, according to the Financial Times – a plan Trump quickly said he would reject.

“No, that would not be acceptable to me,” Trump told reporters. Trump added that he would want it to be “much, much bigger.”

This story and headline have been updated with new reporting.

NEWS FROM: CNN WORLD

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would impose an additional 10% tariff on Chinese products on top of the original tariffs, and impose a 25% tariff on all products from Mexico and Canada.

Trump pointed out through his social platform Truth Social on the 25th that he had previously negotiated with China many times on the issue of large quantities of drugs, especially Fentanyl, flowing into the United States – but with little success. Chinese representatives claimed that they would severely punish caught drug traffickers with the maximum penalty (that is, the death penalty), but unfortunately, they have not fulfilled their promise. Drugs are flowing into the United States on an unprecedented scale, mostly through Mexico. Before they stop, the United States will impose an additional 10% tariff on all Chinese imports on top of the original tariffs.

Trump also said that as we all know, tens of thousands of people are pouring into the United States through Mexico and Canada, bringing with them unprecedented crime and drug problems. A group of thousands of people from Mexico is trying to cross the “open border” of the United States, and it seems impossible to stop it.

Trump said he would sign the necessary documents on January 20, the day he takes office, to impose a 25% tariff on all Mexican and Canadian products imported into the United States and issue an executive order against the United States’ absurd open borders. Tariffs will not be lifted until drugs (especially fentanyl) and all illegal immigrants stop invading the United States.

Trump pointed out that Mexico and Canada have absolute power and can easily solve this long-standing problem. We ask them to exercise this right, and before doing so, they need to pay a very high price!

In an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on the 26th, Goldman Sachs China Securities Strategy Chief Kinger Lau said that an additional 10% tariff on Chinese products would be lower than the 20% to 30% originally expected by the market. He predicted that China would offset the impact of increased tariffs on the economy by cutting interest rates, increasing fiscal stimulus packages, and mildly devaluing the renminbi.

During his campaign, Trump threatened to impose a 60% tariff on Chinese imports and a 10-20% tariff on products from other overseas regions. According to calculations, these tariff actions may increase the cost of each iPhone by US$240.

Barron’s reported on November 13 that Census Bureau data showed that the United States imported approximately $4 trillion in goods and services over the past year. Among them, US$433 billion are Chinese goods, and about one-tenth of this (US$42 billion) is smartphones. More than 80% of imported smartphones come from China, and there is not much domestic production capacity in the United States.

Analysis shows that about 45-50% of the cost of each iPhone is related to imported content. If a 60% tariff is levied on these imported contents, it would be equivalent to a tax burden of US$216~240 per iPhone 16, with an effective tax rate of 27~30%.

(Image source: shutterstock)

 

News source: Yahoo stock market! Moneydj financial management network

On August 20, Yang Ming Marine released a notice stating that a container on the deck of the YM Mobility vessel had exploded at the Ningbo Port Phase III terminal on August 9th. Local port authorities have completed firefighting operations and are conducting a subsequent investigation.

To safeguard the safety and interests of the vessel, cargo, and crew, Yang Ming Marine has formally declared a general average and appointed Richards Hogg Lindley to collect security from cargo parties. Please refer to the detailed cargo withdrawal notice for specific security requirements and document templates.

To facilitate the smooth release of your cargo and avoid unnecessary delays, please contact the adjusters and provide the necessary security and corresponding documents. Please treat this notice as urgent to avoid delays; cargo cannot be withdrawn until security is submitted.

A general average occurs when a vessel carrying cargo belonging to one or more parties sacrifices part of the vessel or cargo to save the whole. In such cases, the loss is shared by all cargo owners to adjust the extent of the loss.

International Logistics Circle Maritime Cargo Expert CommunitySecond International Port and Logistics and Multimodal Transport Exhibition, grandly opened on August 21st.

Previously, on August 12, Yang Ming Marine issued a statement indicating that a container explosion had occurred on board the YM Mobility while operating in Ningbo Port. Relevant authorities are investigating the cause and responsibility of the incident. The estimated loss ranges from US$1.5 million to US$9.5 million.

The declaration of a general average means that all cargo owners on the YM Mobility must share the responsibility and provide general average security before their cargo can be released. According to the latest vessel dynamics displayed by the Vessel Tracking Network, the YM Mobility is still berthed at Ningbo Port.

It is worth noting that before the accident in Ningbo Port, the vessel had called at Shanghai Port, involving multiple shipping companies in a joint venture. Cargo owners and freight forwarders whose cargo was loaded on this vessel recently should maintain timely communication with their clients and shipping companies to understand the latest situation and disseminate the information.

Source: Vessel Tracking Network compilation, please indicate the source when reprinting.