EU, Canada object to U.S. steel tariffs

As some Republican leaders expressed surprise and disappointment, key trading partners said on Thursday they would react strongly with a proposal within days for countermeasures against the United States for trade restrictions on steel and aluminum, which it called a 'blatant intervention” to protect U.S. industry.

President Donald Trump announced on Thursday he would impose hefty tariffs on imported steel and aluminum to protect U.S. producers, risking retaliation from major trade partners such as Europe and China.

Trump said the duties of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum would be formally announced next week although White House officials later said some details still needed to be ironed out.

Trump believes the tariffs will safeguard American jobs but many economists say the impact of price increases for consumers of steel and aluminum, such as the auto and oil industries, will be to destroy more jobs than they create.

'We're going to build our steel industry back and our aluminum industry back,” he said.

Trump's fellow Republicans, however, were aghast at the announcement.

The decision represented the president's most dramatic break to date with his party's traditional free-trade orthodoxy, and arrived with no advance warning to Republican leaders in Washington.

After being informed of the scope of the new tariffs, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who chairs the Agriculture Committee, pronounced the move 'terribly counterproductive.”

'Every time you do this you get a retaliation, and agriculture's the No. 1 target,” Roberts said.

Shortly after Trump announced tariffs on imported solar panels and washing machines last month, Chinese officials reacted by investigating U.S. exports of sorghum, a cereal grain grown in Kansas and elsewhere. The Chinese probe is aimed at determining whether the United States is engaging in exporting the product at an unnaturally low price.

'We strongly regret this step, which appears to represent a blatant intervention to protect U.S. domestic industry and not to be based on any national security justification,” the European Commission chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker said in a statement.

'We will not sit idly while our industry is hit with unfair measures that put thousands of European jobs at risk ...

. The EU will react firmly and commensurately to defend our interests,” considering World Trade Organization-compatible countermeasures.

Also on Thursday, Canadian Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said any U.S. tariff or quota imposed on Canada's steel industry would be 'unacceptable” and would be felt in both Canada and the United States.

'...

Canadians (can) rest assured we'll always be there to defend our workers and our steel and aluminum industry across this country and we will stand firm for Canadian workers,” Champagne said in the House of Commons.

On Wall Street, major stock indexes dropped on the news. The Dow Jones industrial average ended down by more than 400 points.

l Reuters and the Washington Post contributed to this article.