Imported Steel Tariffs Double, White House Rescission Request, Gaza Aid Paused
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How are the new steel and aluminum tariffs set to impact consumers?
good morning leila good morning just waking up yes i'm so tired today oh i'm so sorry but i sound like this all the time you're the first person i've spoken to though wow i'm touched do you know i run into like listeners who will say that they'll say you're the first person who talks to me in the morning oh that's sweet yeah There might be variants on that. You're the first person I like who I talked to today.
Everyone else in this house, get rid of.
How will new tariffs affect the cost of U.S.-made products that use imported aluminum and steel?
We, as can makers, pass these increases on to our customers.
Domestic businesses consider the cost. I'm Steve Inskeep with Leila Fadal, and this is Up First from NPR News. The White House formally asked Congress to claw back some spending it had previously approved. The administration made that request after failing to cut spending very much on its own.
The losses that the administration is seeing in the courts may be impacting how they think they need to approach issues.
What would a vote in Congress mean for public broadcasting and foreign aid?
And the U.S.-backed organization delivering food aid in Gaza has paused distribution for the day following yet another strike. deadly shooting by the Israeli military near one of its sites. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.
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President Trump is doubling down on steel and aluminum tariffs, literally.
Starting today, the tax on the imported metals is 50%, and that is double what it was yesterday. It's the president's latest move and is constantly shifting trade war.
With me now is NPR's chief economics correspondent, Scott Horsley. Good morning, Scott.
Good morning, Leila.
So what's the president's goal in doubling the steel and aluminum tariffs?
Trump says he wants to protect the blue-collar jobs at U.S. steel mills and aluminum smelters. He announced that the tariff's going to 50% in front of a crowd of hardhat-wearing steel workers outside Pittsburgh on Friday. And the higher tariffs likely will provide a boost for those domestic companies that produce steel and aluminum. However, for every steel worker in America, there are about 80 people who work at companies that use steel, and their costs are about to go up.
So what does this mean for those businesses and their customers?
Yeah, it's very challenging. I spoke to H.O. Woltz, who runs a company in Mount Airy, North Carolina, that twists steel wire into cables used in reinforced concrete. He's worried that his cost for raw materials is now going to be twice as high as what international competitors are paying on the world market.
You can build all the walls and implement all the tariffs that you want to, but you at a point, you don't get away from the fact that Chinese are driving this whole world market.
During the first Trump administration, Waltz's company was doubly squeezed because they had to pay more for raw steel, but were still competing with imported finished goods that didn't face tariffs. This time around, he is better off because the Trump administration is also taxing some of those downstream finished goods. But Waltz worries that the tariffs might push the cost of building materials up so high that it just puts some construction projects on hold.
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