The Trump administration has quietly expanded its 50% steel and aluminum tariffs to include more than 400 additional product categories, vastly increasing the reach and impact of this arm of its trade agenda.
The new tariffs, which took effect Monday, expand the scope of the levies that President Donald Trump previously announced on the valuable commodities. The tariff list now covers products such as fire extinguishers, machinery, construction materials and specialty chemicals that either contain, or are contained in, aluminum or steel.
“Auto parts, chemicals, plastics, furniture components—basically, if it’s shiny, metallic, or remotely related to steel or aluminum, it’s probably on the list,” Brian Baldwin, vice president of customs at Kuehne + Nagel International AG wrote on LinkedIn of the expanded list.
“This isn’t just another tariff—it’s a strategic shift in how steel and aluminum derivatives are regulated,” he wrote.
The levies extend to 407 new product categories, the Department of Commerce said Tuesday.
“Today’s action expands the reach of the steel and aluminum tariffs and shuts down avenues for circumvention – supporting the continued revitalization of the American steel and aluminum industries,” Jeffrey Kessler, the Commerce Department’s under secretary for industry and security, said in a statement.
The release from the agency links out to a list that identifies the newly included product types only by the specific customs codes that apply to them, not by what the products are actually called.
For example, the Commerce Department identifies the product category of fire extinguishers only as “8424.10.0000,” a 10-digit code buried among hundreds of other 10-digit codes.
This format makes it very difficult for the public to get a full picture of all the products that are affected by Monday’s expanded tariffs.
But experts say the impact will be enormous.
“By my count, the steel and aluminum tariffs now affect at least $320 billion of imports based on 2024′s general customs value of imports,” Jason Miller, a professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, wrote on LinkedIn. That is a substantial increase from his prior estimate of roughly $190 billion.
“This will add more inflationary cost-push pressures to already climbing prices that domestic producers are charging as picked up by July’s PPI data,″ he continued.
source: cnbc.com
