GUIDANCE

Trump's Trade Challenges, Revisited

Mar 2, 2018 | 00:02 GMT

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a March 1, 2018, meeting at the White House with steel and aluminum industry leaders. Trump said he will formally announce a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports next week.

(MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Highlights

President Donald Trump's announcement that large tariffs are coming next week on steel and aluminum imports is just the start of a bigger trade push, ostensibly targeting China.
Over the next week, other countries and certain U.S. steel and aluminum consumers will lobby for country- and product-specific exemptions to the tariffs, but Trump is likely to minimize the number of exceptions he gives.
In launching the tariffs under the guise of national security, the United States will face international backlash, both in retaliatory trade measures, but also at the World Trade Organization.

A chaotic series of events unfolded at the White House after news broke late on Feb. 28 that President Donald Trump would announce his decision on import tariffs on steel and aluminum the next day. But reportedly, many senior administration officials had been caught off guard by the news of a planned announcement, and no decision on tariffs had been made. And then during a March 1 meeting with executives from the steel and aluminum industries, Trump said he will formally announce a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum next week. The details clearly remain unresolved as legal teams continue to pore over the final text, but action also clearly looms. Nearly two weeks ago when the U.S. Commerce Department released its report on whether steel and aluminum imports threaten to impair U.S. national security, Stratfor wrote a guidance outlining what we would be...

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