President Donald Trump announced that the United States would double its current rate of steel import rate from 25% to 50%.
Speaking during a rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Trump said that this decision would help stimulate the local steel industry and national production, while reducing dependence on China.
Trump also said that $ 14 billion would be invested in the region’s steel production thanks to a partnership between US Steel and Nippon Steel in Japan. The details on the partnership are not yet clear, although Trump was praising the agreement.
The announcement is the last turn of the Trump roller coaster approach to prices since returning to the office in January.
“There will be no layoffs and no outsourcing, and each worker of American steel will soon receive a well -deserved bonus of $ 5,000,” Trump told the crowd, filled with steel sisters, to noisy applause.
The president spent a large part of his remarks to think about how he “saved” US Steel, the largest American steel manufacturer, located in Pittsburgh, with his 25% prices on steel, which he implemented in 2018 during his first mandate as president. The 50%increase in prices, Trump said, would assume his survival.
“At 50%, they can no longer overcome the fence,” he said.
The announcement comes in the midst of a legal battle on legality on some of Trump’s world rates, which a court of appeal has made it possible to continue for the moment.
His taxes on steel and aluminum imports were not affected by the trial.
The prices have shaken world trade and markets. They have aggravated relations between China and the United States, the two world’s largest economies in the world, and launched the countries in a Tit-For-Tat trade battle that could continue.
On Friday, President Trump accused China of raping a truce that they would come to prices earlier this month. China responded with its own accusations of American misdeeds.
Washington and Beijing have agreed to temporarily reduce the rates of Tit-For-Tat after interviews in Geneva.
But Trump said on Friday that China “completely violated its agreement with us”. He did not give details, but the US trade representative Jamieson Greer later said that China had not deleted the non -tariff obstacles contained under the agreement.
Beijing’s response did not directly deal with American complaints on Friday, but urged the United States to “stop discriminatory restrictions on China”.
