Tariffs Did Little for U.S. Steel Industry: Wall Street Journal

The tariffs imposed by the Trump administration “didn’t fuel [a] revival for American steel,” a Wall Street Journal article stated in October.

Although the tariffs initially pushed up prices for domestic steel and created jobs in the sector, the longer-term effects have not been as positive, according to the paper.Higher steel prices ended up reducing demand because they “hurt U.S. manufacturers, including those in the automotive and appliance sectors, who say the duties on steel and aluminum continue to keep their metal costs higher than what overseas competitors pay.”

As a result, the 6,000 jobs that appeared after the tariffs were implemented were short-lived and were dwarfed by a loss of 75,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector.

The article also noted that new, more efficient plants recently built by domestic steel companies “will eventually saturate the U.S. market, where steel consumption is expected to decline in the coming years.”

In a separate article published by Bloomberg, some high-level members of the American steel industry acknowledged that their sector needs more than tariffs, with the international president of United Steelworkers saying that he wants Joe Biden to understand one thing about the issue: “Tariffs aren’t a long-term solution. They’re a Band-Aid.”