Trump’s steel and aluminium tariffs target a deeper issue – but risk job losses and higher prices

Few materials matter quite as much as steel and aluminium.

Steel, an alloy of iron and carbon, is the main metallic ingredient in the structures we live in and the bridges we build. If it’s not made of steel it’s made with steel.

Aluminium, on the other hand, is a wonder material we use with wild abandon these days. A light metal we use in planes and trains, in the bodies of electric vehicles and in those high voltage power lines we’ll need so many of to provide electricity in the coming years.

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All of which is to say these metals are the bedrock for much of the world around us. And like most developed economies, the US is far from independent when it comes to these materials. The degree of dependence on other countries varies between them.

According to the US Geological Survey, America’s “net import reliance ratio” for aluminium is close to 50%, implying it is deeply dependent on imports to satisfy demand among its companies. The degree of dependence is considerably lower for steel – only a little over 10%.

At least part of the idea behind tariffs is to bring some production back to the US, but imposing them will have consequences.

What kinds of consequences? Well, at its simplest, tariffs push up prices. This is, when you think about it, blindingly obvious. A tariff is a tax on a good entering the country. So if aluminium and steel are going up in price then that means, all else equal, that the cost of making everything from aircraft wings to steel rivets also goes up. That in turn means consumers end up paying the price – and if a company can’t make ends meet in the face of these tariffs, it means job losses – possibly within the very industrial sectors the president wants to protect.

So says the economic theory. But in practice, economics isn’t everything. There are countless examples throughout history of countries defying economic logic in search of other goals. Perhaps they want to improve their national self-reliance in a given product; perhaps they want to ensure certain jobs in cherished areas or industries are protected. But nothing comes for free, and even if Donald Trump‘s tariffs succeed in persuading domestic producers to smelt more aluminium or steel, such things don’t happen overnight. In the short run, it’s hard to see how these tariffs wouldn’t be significantly inflationary.

There’s a deeper issue here, which comes back (as so many of Mr Trump’s economic measures do) to China. Both the steel and aluminium markets have faced enormous influxes of cheap Chinese metals in recent years – to the extent that in recent months those Chinese imports have actually been cheaper than the cost of production in Europe.

To some extent, that’s a consequence of high European energy costs, but it’s partly down to the fact that China subsidises its producers more than most other countries around the world. Indeed, of all the products in the world, few have had as many cases lodged at the World Trade Organisation as steel.

Read more:
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But while it’s worth being aware of these dynamics, which are pushing cheap steel into many markets, it’s also worth noting that the US actually imports far less from China than you might have thought. The vast majority of American aluminium imports, for instance, come from Canada rather than China. Any tariffs on the metal would further undermine the economic relationship between these parts of North America.

Much, of course, now depends on the structure and detail of these tariffs – and the extent to which they’re actually implemented. As with his threatened tariffs on Canada and Mexico, these ones raise as many questions as they answer. That is likely to be the way of things for much of this presidential term.