“We will study necessary responses within the framework of the WTO”.
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The United States bought just 1.1 percent of China’s steel exports a year ago compared with 12 percent for South Korea and 5 percent for Japan, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission.
The EU’s trade chief Cecilia Malmstrom warned on Friday, at a panel discussion in Brussels, that imposing tariffs is not the way to resolve overcapacity in the steel sector. However, as news outlets have pointed out, that figure leaves out the fact that the USA has a trade surplus. Navarro said that merely exempting Canada would force the other tariffs to have to be increased; what if Trump adds Japan and/or South Korea to the list?
Seko said Japan’s steel exports to the United States, used for automobile manufacturing, are “contributing greatly to the USA industry and (the creation of) jobs”.
The carveouts for Mexico and Canada will be dependent on progress in negotiations to update the North American Free Trade Agreement.
But Republican lawmakers pushed back against this logic and questioned how the tariffs can be a nationals security issue if they are also being tied to NAFTA talks.
Says Trump, “It’s really an assault on our country”.
“It’s been an assault”, Trump said at the White House.
The president, who called aluminum and steel “the backbone of our nation”, further contended that the policy marks an end to the “betrayal” of American workers.
The new duties amount to 25 percent on foreign steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum.
The tariffs will go into effect 15 days from Thursday and will retain flexibility for the president. “I just want fairness”.
The EU insists that it is committed to open, global trade, and that Trump’s tariffs are a protective measure to prop up US industry that could undermine the worldwide trading system. The tariffs, which will come into force within 15 days, are expected to lead to retaliation from the European Union and other steel producers and heighten fears of a trade war.
“We’re going to hold off the tariff on those two countries, to see whether or not we’re able to make the deal on NAFTA”, Trump said. While China accounts for just a small portion of US imports, the Trump administration has said it diverts its shipments of the metals through other countries on the way to the U.S. It will also add safeguarding measures and put its own tariffs in place to prevent an excess of steel imports to the marketplace.
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“A generalized tariff that would harm allies, harm American consumers, by the way, harm American workers that use steel in production, hurting their competitive nature in global markets as well, I’m opposed to that”, Johnson said.
