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Originally Posted by yray
The steel market has already taken the tariffs in account. Good thing the prices were already increasing so it wasn't a shock, its just increased slightly faster.
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The tariffs are 25%, which is a huge jump.
As you said, the prices were already increasing. So you had a shakeup in the market with sellers notifying buyers of a price increase. Or, you would have companies eating the difference. That's fine if it goes up a few percent. But 25 points is more than the distributor profit. You can't eat that.
This is another crazy move by Trump. However, if profit for US business was his end result, it may work.
We have to keep in mind that steel and aluminum production are very dirty industries. AK Steel, the largest producer in the US was guilty of dumping over 12,000 tons of toxic chemicals into Ohio waterways in 2010. That's a lot of nastiness going into the water system.
Bringing the steel industry back to America could be good for their local economies, but it's going to be hell on the environment.