Trade Cases

Trump refutes tariff pare-down report

January 6, 2025

The incoming Trump administration is reportedly considering paring back the president-elect’s plans for universal tariffs.

While imports of all products may not face tariffs after all, the administration is apparently still mulling them for sectors critical to the nation’s defense and national security – including steel and aluminum – according to the Washington Post.

Three anonymous sources close to the matter told the Post that Trump aides are reviewing alternative tariff arrangements, including levies on ‘critical imports’ from all countries.

While no final decisions have been made yet, “Preliminary discussions have largely focused on several key sectors that the Trump team wants to bring back to the United States,” the newspaper reported the sources as saying.

“Those include the defense industrial supply chain (through tariffs on steel, iron, aluminum and copper) … and energy production (batteries, rare earth minerals and even solar panels,” the Post wrote.

“The sector-based universal tariff is a little bit easier for everybody to stomach out the gate,” one source told the Post. “And it would still give CEOs a massive incentive to start making their products here.”

Trump says that’s “Fake News”

However, President-elect Trump quickly refuted the WaPo report.

“The story in the Washington Post, quoting so-called anonymous sources, which don’t exist, incorrectly states that my tariff policy will be pared back,” Trump said in a Jan. 6 post on Truth Social. “That is wrong. The Washington Post knows it’s wrong. It’s just another example of Fake News.”

Section 232 tariffs still in play

Recall that President Trump imposed Section 232 tariffs on imports of steel (25%) and aluminum (10%) in his first term. Some countries, like Canada and Mexico, were later excluded from the duties, while others, like Japan, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, negotiated for tariff rate quotas, and Argentina, Brazil, and South Korea have absolute quotas. Those are still in place.

From their start in 2018 through Oct. 30, 2024, US importers paid S232 taxes of $14.07 billion to import steel and $4.28 billion to import aluminum products, according to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.

Laura Miller

Laura Miller is a reporter and editor for Steel Market Update. She has held a variety of positions within the steel industry since 2007, including reporting and editing for Steel Business Briefing/Platts, the Association for Iron and Steel Technology, and Kallanish Commodities, as well as marketing for what was then known as ThyssenKrupp Steel USA (now AM/NS Calvert). After a five-year hiatus working across other industries, she returned to steel in 2021 and has covered the flat rolled, tubular, and trade areas of the industry. She is a member of the Association of Women in the Metal Industries and a past-president of the AWMI Pittsburgh Chapter. She holds a BA in Latin American Studies from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She can be reached at laura@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-759-7869.