Mexico, Canada and the European Union sentenced on Tuesday the decision of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, to impose tariffs on all imports of steel and aluminum next month, a measure that has fueled the fears of a commercial war.
Trump signed the proclamations on Monday night raising the US rates rate. Exclusions of specific product rates for both metals.
The measures, which will enter into force on March 12, will be applied to millions of tons of imports of steel and aluminum from Canada, Brazil, Mexico, South Korea and other countries that had been entering the taxes of the United States under the talas
Mexican Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Tuesday that the tariff decision was “not justified” and “unfair.”
The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, described the rates as “unacceptable.”
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, joined the conviction, saying that the 27 -nations block would take “firm and proportional countermeasures.” Von der Leyen met with the Vice President of the United States, JD Vance, at a summit of AI in Paris on Tuesday.
The measure will simplify tariffs on metals “so that everyone can understand exactly what it means,” Trump told reporters. “They are 25pc without exceptions or exemptions. That is all countries, regardless of where all countries come from. “
Trump said he would continue with ads about reciprocal tariffs in all countries that impose duties to US goods in the next two days, and said he was also looking for tariffs on cars, semiconductors and pharmaceutical products.
When asked about retaliation threats from other countries against their new tariffs, Trump said: “I don’t care.”
Ready to take reprisals
In figures that will probably owe IRK to Trump, Germany’s commercial surplus with the United States reached a record level last year of 70 billion euros ($ 72.3 billion), according to data from the German statistics office.
The head of the European Commission, von der Leyen, said that deeply regretted the decision of the United States, adding that tariffs were taxes that were bad for business and worse for consumers. EU steel exports to the US have averaged around 3 billion euros ($ 3.1bn) a year during the last decade.
“The unjustified tariffs in the EU will not remain unanswered: they will trigger firm and proportional countermeasures. The EU will act to safeguard their interests, ”he said in a statement.
An option for the EU would be to reactivate the rates imposed in 2018 that were suspended under a truce agreed between Von der Leyen and the then US president Joe Biden.
EU tariffs on American products such as bourbon, motorcycles and orange juice are currently suspended until the end of March.
The EU US Chamber of Commerce, which represents active American companies in Europe, also criticized movement as harmful to jobs, prosperity and security on both sides of the Atlantic.
“The damage will extend beyond the steel and aluminum sectors, which will affect all the companies that depend on these materials throughout the supply chain,” he added in a statement.
Trump’s last commercial save brought gold prices to a record on Tuesday on safe demand in Asian trade before retiring.
Canada to defend itself
Steel imports represented approximately 23pc of American steel consumption in 2023, according to the data of the American Iron and Steel Institute, with Canada, Brazil and Mexico the largest suppliers.
Canada, whose abundant hydroelectric resources help their metal production, represented almost 80 percent of the primary aluminum imports of the United States in 2024.
Speaking apart from the Paris Artificial Intelligence Summit, Prime Minister Trudeau said that Canada would seek to highlight the negative impact of the United States rates and, if necessary, his response would be firm and clear.
“The Canadians will rise strongly and firmly if necessary,” he said.
Trump will also impose a new North America standard that requires steel imports to “melt and see” and aluminum be “molten and molten” within the region to curb US imports of minimally processed Chinese and Russian metals that avoid other rates.
Although China exports only small steel volumes to the US. and leads to Chinese steel transford through other countries in the United States to avoid rates and other commercial restrictions.
