The American steel industry is booming fueled by technological advances and the creation of a smoother playing field created last year by President Trump with the import duties on steel and aluminum imposed on all steel products supplied to the domestic market, industry leaders said in Tuesday at a conference in Pittsburgh.
The current “golden era” for the US steel industry will continue “for the foreseeable future,” said the CEO of US Steel Corp. David Berritt.
Tariffs on foreign steel imposed by the Trump administration show an understanding of the strategic and important role that steel plays in national security and the economy, Burritt told industry officials. The presidential administration understands that "if you don't have steel, you don't have a country," Berritt said.
Tax reform and regulatory certainty have also played a role in the industry's resurgence, said Philip Bell, president of the Washington, DC Steel Association.
Nevertheless, according to the calculations of experts polled by the Washington Post, Americans are paying a huge price for these tariffs. American consumers and companies pay more than $ 900,000 a year for every job created thanks to Trump's tariffs in the economy, the publication cites data from the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The total additional cost to the US economy is about $ 11.5 billion per year.
The American Institute for International Steel, a Virginia-based trade group that supports free trade, has questioned Trump's authority to impose tariffs based on addressing national security threats. The organization has appealed a March ruling by the U.S. Court of International Trade that a previous Supreme Court decision prevented Trump from considering whether Trump violated the Constitution by circumventing Congress to regulate trade.
Tariff advocates argue that the US Treasury is making some profit from tariffs and that the longer tariffs are in effect, the more domestic industry will flourish.
A spokeswoman for the US Department of Commerce pointed to significant job growth in the manufacturing sector in the past year, including in industries that consume steel and aluminum, as a sign that the economy is doing well in line with Trump's policies.
