Why U.S. Steelmakers Won't Win From Trump's Tariffs
President Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs may not result in the intended boom for the U.S. steel industry.
“If the automakers are using less metal, they’re selling less product because of these tariffs, eventually I think it’s going to hurt steel stocks,” said Patrick Sanders, Assistant Managing Editor at U.S. News & World Report.
He pointed out that Bank of America has already downgraded U.S. Steel in light of Trump’s announcement.
The tariffs could also hit employment numbers, said Sanders.
“The last time that we had steel tariffs was in 2003. About 200,000 people lost their jobs. A lot of those were in the auto industry.”
On Thursday, Trump stated he’d slap a 25 percent tax on steel imports and a 10 percent tarriff on aluminum imported into the U.S.
Trump claimed the policy would benefit American industrials, tweeting, “We must protect our country and our workers. Our steel industry is in bad shape.”
Wall Street is shaky Thursday as investors consider both the upsides and downsides of the latest signals that the U.S. economy remains in much better shape than feared.
Threatened by possible shortages of lithium for electric car batteries, automakers are racing to lock in supplies of the once-obscure “white gold” in a politically and environmentally fraught competition from China to Nevada to Chile.
The number of different electronic cigarette devices sold in the U.S. has nearly tripled to over 9,000 since 2020, driven almost entirely by a wave of unauthorized disposable vapes from China, according to tightly controlled sales data obtained by The Associated Press.
In Wednesday's business headlines, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is due in court to defend the company's takeover of Activision Blizzard and United Airlines is under fire over its recent cancellations with CEO Scott Kirby blaming the FAA for the disruptions. Meanwhile, a judge approved Overstock's purchase of Bed Bath & Beyond assets.
