Donald Trump has announced that he has doubled foreign tariffs on steel imports to 50% as he celebrated the “smash hit” agreement for Japan-based Japanese steel investing in American steel during a rally in Pennsylvania.
Surrounded by the orange hard hat man, Trump revealed the rise in tariff rates when he spoke at the US steel plant in West Mifflin, declaring that the dramatic hike would “make the US steel industry even safer.”
“No one is going to avoid that,” Trump said of the tariff hike from 25%. The announcement comes a day after a federal court of appeals temporarily granted Trump’s tariffs to effectively maintain a decision by the U.S. Trade Court that prevented the president from impose his duties.
In his remarks, Trump chanted “America!” chant, including protections for Japan’s investments to once again make American steelmakers “synonymous with greatness” and “ensure that all steel workers maintain their jobs and all facilities in the United States continue to thrive and open.”
There are few details released, but Trump told the steel workers in attendance that “there are a lot of ways you do it.”
“You said, ‘Please, sir, we don’t want this kind of success. That’s too much, sir,” the president said.
Trump has threw his full support behind the “partnership” between Japan and the US steel giant after claiming he was “completely against” Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion bid for US rivals.
The president also claimed that the agreement ensured that US steel was under American control.
Trump framed the administration’s willingness to boost domestic steel production, not just “issues of dignity, prosperity, and pride, but more than anything else, national security.”
He accused Washington of “decrying decades of betrayal, incompetence, stupidity and corruption.”
“We don’t want the future of America to be built with Shanghai’s crude steel. We want to build it with the strength and pride of Pittsburgh,” he said.
In his remarks at a US steel factory, Trump also repeated many false claims that have been featured in his rally, including the lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him. He won the 2024 victory and gestured towards his ears, grazing by assassin bullets at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania last year, saying it proved to be watching over him.
He also called on Congress to pass “one big and beautiful bill” and urged residents to support the bill with Republicans and Senators.
