The pressure on consumers of steel and aluminum imports, which had already been subject to a 25% duty since March, increased when U.S. President Donald Trump imposed 50% tariffs on those imports early on Wednesday.
The president’s recent trade action “will further increase the cost of canned goods at the grocery store,” according to the Can Manufacturers Institute, a lobbying group for metal can manufacturers. The group also said that it will affect “millions of American families relying on canned foods picked and packed by U.S. farmers, food producers, and can makers.”
After federal judges delayed and then reinstated his global tariffs on U.S. trade partners earlier this week, Trump announced on Friday that he would increase the import fees on steel and aluminum.
The taxes that Trump imposed on particular companies and is anticipated to apply on other businesses are unaffected by the court decisions from last week. This is so because sector-based tariffs are based on two distinct mechanisms: Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which deals with unfair trade practices, and Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which focuses on national security. It is therefore anticipated that Trump may now choose to impose quite large levies or increase his use of sector-based tariffs.
See: Despite courts battling existing Trump taxes, it appears that the pharmaceutical, chip, and other industries will soon face new tariffs.
What is the present status of all the taxes that the self-proclaimed “Tariff Man” has imposed?
Everything is explained in the table below. According to estimates from Yale’s Budget Lab, the average effective U.S. tariff rate is currently at 15%, the highest level since 1938.
The S&P 500 stock index SPX was trading little changed on Wednesday, maintaining a year-to-date gain of around 1.5%. Stocks have rallied since April 9, when the Trump administration announced its partial retreat on the president’s “liberation day” tariffs, which had sparked a historic market selloff.
