While many wring their hands over the impact that tariffs on steel and aluminum might eventually have on the economy, some initial worry about the impact at the Toledo ports has eased.
The news that President Donald Trump will impose a 25-percent tariff on foreign steel and a 10-percent tariff on foreign aluminum raised concerns that these steps could harm the Port of Toledo’s handling imported steel and aluminum.
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The president followed up his initial declaration with the clarification that the tariffs would exempt the U.S.’s North American Free Trade Agreement partners — Canada and Mexico. That was a sound decision that respects the existing relationship and the recently started NAFTA renegotiation talks.
Joe Cappel, the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority’s vice president for business development, says the exemption for Canadian steel is a relief. Last year, 235,917 tons of aluminum and 42,500 tons of steel entered the United States at the port of Toledo, all of it from Canada.
The tariffs also will likely not have a negative impact on the newest large economic development project taking place in Toledo — Cleveland Cliffs’ construction of a $700 million plant to make hot briquetted iron, a raw material in the steel-making process.
If anything, the market for products used in the domestic steel industry will be enhanced by the tariffs. That’s to Toledo’s benefit.
The steel and aluminum tariffs are aimed at pressuring China to stop subsidizing the manufacture of steel. China makes about half of the steel sold in the world and unfairly dumps subsidized steel around the globe.
President Trump’s commitment is an affirmation of a campaign promise that helped get him elected. He has a moral obligation to live up to his promises.
The appropriate exemption of Canadian steel from the tariffs means that the gloom and doom predictions for steel and aluminum tariffs remain just that.
First Published March 23, 2018, 9:30 p.m.
