US President Donald Trump is walking while employees respond to US Steel Corporation – Irvin Works in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, US, 30 May 2025. | Photocredit: Reuters/Leah Millis
US President Donald Trump told Pennsylvania SteelWorkers on Friday that he doubles the rate on steel imports to 50 percent to protect their industry, a dramatic increase that could further increase prices for a metal that is used to make housing, cars and other goods.
In a post later on his social social platform, he added that aluminum rates would also be doubled to 50 percent, and both tariff increases would take effect on Wednesday.
Trump spoke in the Mon Valley Works-Irvin factory of US Steel in the outskirts of Pittsburgh, where he also discussed a deal with Detail-to-Kom, including the Japanese Nippon Steel in the iconic American steel maker.
Although Trump initially promised the bid of the Japanese steel maker to buy the American steel established in Pittsburgh, he announced the course and last week announced an agreement for what he described by Nippon as “partial ownership”.
However, it is unclear, if the deal who helped his administration, broker is completed or how ownership would have been structured.
“We are here today to celebrate a blockbuster agreement that will ensure that this legendary American company remains an American company,” Trump said as he opened an event in one of the US Steel warehouses.
“You remain an American company, you know, right?” With regard to the rates, Trump said that doubling the taxes on imported steel “will protect the steel industry in the US even further”.
But such a dramatic increase could push prices even higher.
Steel prices have risen by 16 percent since Trump became president in mid -January, according to government Price Index producer.
From March 2025 Staal USD 984 cost a ton in the United States, considerably more than the price in Europe (USD 690) or China (USD 392), according to the US Commerce Department.
The United States produced about three times more steel than last year imported, with Canada, Brazil, Mexico and South Korea the largest sources of steel imports.
Analysts have credited the rates that go back to Trump’s first term with strengthening the domestic steel industry, something that Nippon Steel Van Wilde benefits in his offer to buy US Steel.
The United SteelWorkers Union remained skeptical about the investment of Nippon.
The president, David McCall, said in a statement that the trade union is most concerned “with the impact that this merger of U. Steel will have a foreign competitor on national security, our members and the communities where we live and work”.
Trump emphasized that the deal would maintain the American control over the legendary company, which is seen as both a political symbol and an important issue for the supply chain of the country, industries such as car factories and national security.
Trump, who likes to conclude deals and announces new investments in the US since recovering the White House, also tries voters, including workers who chose him to satisfy him as he called to protect American production.
US Steel has no details about a renewed deal of investors in public. Nippon Steel, which has issued a statement that approves the proposed ‘partnership’, has not announced any conditions of the scheme either.
State and federal legislators who have been informed about this describe a deal in which Nippon will buy American steel and spend billions on American steel facilities in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas and Minnesota.
The company would be checked by an executive suite and council mainly from Americans and protected by the Veto power of the US government in the form of a ‘golden share’. Trade union steel workers said there is a split opinion in the ranks about the acquisition of Nippon Steel, but that sentiment has shifted over time as they became more convinced that US Steel would eventually close their Pittsburgh area.
Regardless of the conditions, the issue exceeded the importance for Trump, who repeatedly said last year that he would block the deal and the foreign ownership of US Steel, just like former President Joe Biden.
During the campaign, Trump promised to make the revitalization of American production a priority of his second term of office.
And the fate of American steel, once the world’s largest company, could become a political liability in the interim elections for his Republican Party in the Swing State Pennsylvania and other Stattels States that depend on industrial production.
Published on May 31, 2025
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