Donald Trump widens his attack on global trade with steel and aluminium tariffs

Good morning and welcome to White Home Watch. King Abdullah of Jordan will meet Donald Trump in Washington in the present day in what’s prone to be a tense encounter. For now, let’s discuss:

• Metal and aluminium tariffs

• A warning from Midwest dairy farmers

• The federal government purge commander

Bored with tariffs but? Donald Trump certain isn’t. 

Yesterday he imposed 25 per cent tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports from March 4, threatening recent chaos in commodity markets and widening his world commerce conflicts.

Retaliation threats have began to roll in, with the EU saying it will apply “agency and proportionate countermeasures”.

Whereas ostensibly Trump’s transfer is to guard home metal producers, it may sharply increase prices for any US producer that imports metals and can in all probability harm Washington’s allies.

US officers mentioned the tariffs had been a response to “surging exports” of the metals to America and “undermining US producers of metal and aluminium”.

Whereas Mexico and Canada got a 30-day reprieve from blanket levies earlier this month, they’re proper again within the US president’s crosshairs. In 2023, the 2 nations had been, together with China, the largest exporters of metal and aluminium merchandise to the US. These tariffs may additionally doubtlessly hit international locations equivalent to Brazil, Germany and South Korea.

Trump’s transfer, which he first promised over the weekend, despatched US metals prices soaring to massive premiums. Downing Avenue played down the tariffs’ potential influence on the British financial system, regardless of the nation’s trade warning they may very well be “devastating”.

Focusing on metals like this revives one of the biggest trade moves from Trump’s first stint within the White Home. In 2018, he imposed 25 per cent tariffs on metal and 10 per cent on aluminium in opposition to most international locations, citing nationwide safety, earlier than extending them to the EU, Canada and Mexico.

Again then, US imports of metals fell instantly. Washington’s levies hit about €6.4bn of EU metal and aluminium exports, and Brussels later imposed its personal tariffs on about €2.8bn price of US imports. 

Regardless of many exceptions on many merchandise, some firms — particularly within the auto trade — had been rocked by the uncertainty and rising uncooked supplies prices. Home metal producers additionally took the chance to push up their very own costs.

Final name in your questions on Trump’s commerce agenda. Write to us at whitehousewatch@ft.com together with your title and placement and we could reply them in a e-newsletter subsequent week.

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What we’re listening to

Whereas Elon Musk is the infantryman within the Trump administration’s purge of the federal workforce, the operation’s commander is Russell Vought — and he’s able to traumatise US bureaucrats.

Vought, who co-authored “Challenge 2025”, grew to become Trump’s price range director on Friday and subsequently assumed the function of performing director of the Client Monetary Safety Bureau, a federal regulator established within the wake of the worldwide monetary disaster. He instantly ordered a halt to virtually all its operations.

“He’s going to make lots of people’s lives worse. That’s the place, clearly, I feel I would really like individuals to focus their consideration,” Michael Linden, a former US price range official below Joe Biden, instructed the FT’s James Politi. 

Proper after the election, Vought set out how Trump 2.0 would assault the paperwork, and check the bounds of presidential energy: “Bureaucracies hate the American individuals,” Vought instructed rightwing media persona Tucker Carlson. “Trauma” have to be inflicted on the civil service to cease it from being “weaponised in opposition to the nation”, he added.

For him, it’s a divine calling: “God has given us a specific function for a specific time,” he mentioned.

Vought has no love for international help, opposes reproductive rights and is salivating for finance and vitality deregulation. He’s additionally sceptical of the Federal Reserve’s particular protections as an unbiased company.

“I’m not an enormous fan of the Fed,” Vought instructed Carlson.

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