Voting promise redeemed
Trump enables high tariffs on steel and aluminum imports
Updated on 10.02.2025 – 11:55 p.m.Reading time: 3 min.
US President Trump issues special tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum. These should apply to all countries without exception.
US President Donald Trump has signed new decrees for steel and aluminum imports to the United States. In doing so, he solves an election campaign promise to prove imports with tariffs that correspond to those who raise other countries to US exports.
Trump had already declared Super Bowl on the flight yesterday that the special tariffs were 25 percent and that all countries are supposed to affect. Exceptions would also not apply to the neighbors Canada and Mexico.
He also wanted to announce “mutual tariffs” (Reciprocal Taiffs). This means that the USA would raise import duties on products if another country imposes tariffs on US goods. “Quite simply: if you calculate something to us, we will charge you something,” said the US President.
Commercial war was initially averted
It was only at the beginning of the week that a North American trade war with uncertain consequences for the global economy was initially averted. Trump, just a few hours before the entry into force of threatened punitive tariffs of 25 percent on goods from neighboring countries Mexico and Canada, were mainly confessed to border security. For this he pushed the trade restrictions on for at least 30 days.
With regard to the economically powerful rivals China, the US President did not let himself be talked about: punitive tariffs of ten percent of all Chinese goods came into force on Tuesday.
After returning to the White House, Trump had also renewed his customs threat to the European Union. Trump wants to strengthen the United States as a production location and reduce the trade deficit with Europe.
EU resolutely to act
The EU had recently shown itself to be trump at a summit in Brussels. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and France President Emmanuel Macron announced European countermeasures if the United States collected additional tariffs on EU goods.
Macron told the US broadcaster CNN on Sunday that the Europeans should be prepared to “react” to new US tariffs. He warned that new US tariffs would have harmful effects for both sides because of the strong economic interdependencies between the United States and Europe. Customs on the products of numerous industries “would increase costs and increase inflation in the United States,” said Macron. He was “not so sure” that this corresponds to the wishes of the US citizens.
EU diplomats said that the European Commission had prepared possible countermeasures a long time ago. During Trump’s first term, the EU had confidently countered new taxes on steel and aluminum products from Europe on Bourbon Whiskey, Harley-Davidson motorcycles and jeans. How strongly the EU reacts this time should depend on Trump’s concrete decision.
In an interview after Trump’s first customs announcements, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Europe will “be at your feet” quickly. “I assure you: Trump will quickly restore the order there with his character and persistence. And you will see – it will happen quickly, soon – that you will all be at your feet and wag a little with the tail. Everything will be part of the Kremlin-friendly journalist Pavel Zarubin in early February, who presented the program “Moscow. The comments were published by the state news agency Ria Novosti. Putin therefore made no further explanations on how Trump, in his opinion, could “restore order”.
Risk for the export nation Germany
New tariffs on imports from Europe would be a deep blow in particular for the German economy, which has already shrunk for two years in a row. The United States is the most important sales market for German exporters. Economists fear a trade war between the USA and the EU.
