By Anjali Sharma
WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump on Thursday imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from anywhere in the world went into effect on Wednesday morning drawn swift retaliatory levies from the European Union and Canada.
Trump had reinstated a 25 per cent tariff on steel and an elevated rate of 25 per cent on aluminum, going up from 15 per cent, during his first term in the White House.
Media reported that no country has been exempted from these levies.
Trump had hit Canada, Mexico, and China with separate tariff hikes as punishment for allowing illegal migrants to pass through their borders (not China) and fentanyl, an addictive opioid. A third set of hikes is expected in April under Trump’s reciprocal taxation system.
EU has said it has targeted $28 billion worth of imports from the US, which is about the same as the estimated worth of the EU’s steel and aluminium exports to the US that will be impacted by the hikes.
The EU hikes came in two stages. In the first, retaliatory tariffs were announced in response to Trump’s first-term levies.
EU had suspended these hikes during President Joe Biden’s term, and that suspension will be allowed to lapse in April. Also in this stage are new tariffs targeting boats, bourbon, and motorcycles.
The second stage will come after two weeks.
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, told reporters she had told her officials to resume trade talks with US officials. “We firmly believe that in a world fraught with geo-economic and political uncertainties, it is not in our common interest to burden our economies with such tariffs”.
Canada is the biggest foreign supplier of steel and aluminum to the US, will slap retaliatory tariffs on $29.8 billion (Canadian dollars) from Wednesday.
Media reports added that there has been no response from the White House to the EU hikes, but Trump had in general threatened to come back with even heavier hikes to retaliatory actions by trading partners.
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