US 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 US 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.
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.
Trump recently touted his economic record in Detroit, aiming to refocus attention on US manufacturing and his efforts to tackle high consumer costs as the White House seeks to show it is addressing the economic anxieties gripping US households.
The US 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.
Prices Sink in Markets
Aluminum prices sank to a one-week low on Friday after the report Trump may trim some import tariffs.
On the London Metal Exchange, the benchmark three-month aluminum contract slipped more than 1.18% to $3,063.50 a ton by 0740 GMT, while the most-active contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange fell 1.76% to 23,195 yuan ($3,355.27) a ton.
The metal has also recently received support from South32, an Australian company, which announced that it would place the Mozal aluminum plant in Mozambique, under care and maintenance next month.
Traders said the removal of tariffs would help ease the flow of aluminum into global markets, but the decision’s impact on supply and demand is limited.
On Friday, the price of aluminum dropped as trading has slowed in China since the Shanghai Futures Exchange will be closed from February 15 for the nine-day Lunar New Year break and reopen on February 24.
The most-active copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange tumbled 2.24% to 100,380 yuan a metric ton.
In return, the three-month benchmark copper price rose slightly by 0.02% to $12,878 per ton, still hovering below the $13,000 level.
