Trump says he plans to double steel tariffs to 50%

The Star

US President Donald Trump on May 30 said he planned to increase tariffs on foreign imports of steel from 25% to 50%, ratcheting up pressure on global steel producers and vowing to deepen the trade war.  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

Transcript

00:00U.S. President Donald Trump told a rally at the U.S. steel plant in Pennsylvania on Friday

00:06that he planned to increase tariffs on foreign imports of steel to 50%,

00:10ratcheting up pressure on global steel producers and further pushing for made-in-USA steel.

00:16We are going to be imposing a 25% increase.

00:22We're going to bring it from 25% to 50%, the tariffs on steel into the United States of America.

00:29Which will even further secure the steel industry in the United States.

00:38Nobody's going to get around that.

00:40If you don't have steel, you don't have a country. You don't have a country.

00:44You can't make a military. What are we going to do?

00:47Say, let's go to China to get our steel for the army tanks and for the boats and ships.

00:52We're taking in billions and billions of dollars in tariffs and other things

00:57and we're keeping our competitive nations, we're keeping them, they're competitors,

01:02and we're keeping them totally at bay.

01:04And we right now have the hottest nation anywhere in the world.

01:09And six months ago we had a nation that was dying.

01:12In February, the Trump administration raised steel and aluminum tariffs to a flat 25%

01:18in a bid to revitalize the struggling steel and aluminum industries in the US.

01:23The tariffs would apply to imports from Canada, Brazil, Mexico, South Korea

01:27and other countries that had been entering the US duty free.

01:30The administration is looking into a pending 14.9 billion US dollar acquisition plan of US steel

01:36by Japan's Nippon Steel that both governments said will preserve American steel jobs

01:40and strengthen domestic production.

01:42After returning to Washington from Pennsylvania,

01:44Trump said he has yet to see the final agreement between the two companies.

01:48Well, you'll see. I mean, but I have to approve the final deal with Nippon.

01:53And we haven't seen that final deal yet.

01:56But they've made a very big commitment and it's a very big investment.

02:00It's the largest investment in the history of the state of Pennsylvania in any deal, not just steel.

02:07And it's thousands of steel workers and not only there, all throughout the country.

02:12Do you anticipate any trade deals next week at all?

02:15And does this deal today with Nippon sort of overall help your talks with Japan?

02:21Well, Japan very much wants to make a trade deal.

02:24I don't think this has much to do with it.

02:26But certainly it certainly won't hurt because we have a very good relationship with Japan.

02:32But as you know, Japan is in there right now negotiating as we speak.

02:36And they want to very much make a deal.

02:38Goodbye, everyone. Have a good time.

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