Feb 13 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump plans to scale back some tariffs on steel and aluminum goods, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Officials in the Commerce Department and U.S. trade representative’s office believe the tariffs are hurting consumers by raising prices for goods including pie tins and food-and-drink cans, the FT report said.
Voters nationwide are worried about prices, and cost-of-living concerns are expected to be a major factor for Americans heading into the November midterm elections.
A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that 30% of Americans approved of Trump’s handling of the rising cost of living, while 59% disapproved, including nine in 10 Democrats and one in five Republicans.
Shares of U.S. steel and aluminum producers slipped in early U.S. trading. Steelmakers Nucor and Steel Dynamics fell about 5% each, while Cleveland-Cliffs slid 7%.
Among aluminum producers, Century Aluminum declined 12% and Alcoa lost 5%.
Benchmark aluminum prices on the London Metal Exchange fell to a one-week low on Friday after the report, with U.S. aluminum buyers being forced to shell out record premiums over the LME benchmark to secure physical supplies. [MTE/L]
Trump hit steel and aluminum imports with tariffs of up to 50% last year and has repeatedly used levies as a negotiating tool with a range of trading partners.
The Trump administration is now reviewing a list of products affected by the levies and plans to exempt some items, halt the expansion of the lists and instead launch more targeted national security probes into specific goods, the FT report added.
The White House and the Commerce Department did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment outside of regular business hours.
Trump recently touted his economic record in Detroit, aiming to refocus attention on U.S. manufacturing and his efforts to tackle high consumer costs as the White House seeks to show it is addressing the economic anxieties gripping U.S. households.
The U.S. Commerce Department last year hiked steel and aluminum tariffs on more than 400 products including wind turbines, mobile cranes, appliances, bulldozers and other heavy equipment, along with railcars, motorcycles, marine engines, furniture and hundreds of other products.
(Reporting by Devika Nair and Shivansh Tiwary in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Swati Verma; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
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