Economy
Trump to double tariffs on foreign steel to 50%
U.S. President Donald Trump is doubling the tariff on steel imports to 50%, a dramatic increase that could further push up prices for a metal used to make housing, autos and other goods.
“Today, I have a major announcement,” Trump said during a rally at a U.S. Steel facility in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
“We are going to be imposing a 25% increase. We’re going to bring it from 25% to 50% the tariffs on steel into the United States of America, which will even further secure the steel industry in the United States, nobody’s going to get around that,” Trump said.
He argued that the increase would close gaps that foreign competitors have used to bypass previous tariffs.
“So, we’re bringing it up from 25%, we’re doubling it to 50% and that’s a loophole,” he added.
In a post later on his Truth Social platform, he added that aluminum tariffs would also be doubled to 50%. He said both tariff hikes would go into effect Wednesday.
Trump spoke at U.S. Steel’s Mon Valley Works-Irvin Plant in suburban Pittsburgh, where he also discussed a details-to-come deal under which Japan’s Nippon Steel will invest in the iconic American steelmaker.
Though Trump initially vowed to block the Japanese steelmaker’s bid to buy Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel, he reversed course and announced an agreement last week for “partial ownership” by Nippon.
It’s unclear, though, if the deal his administration helped broker has been finalized or how ownership would be structured. Nippon Steel has never said it is backing off its bid to outright buy and control U.S. Steel as a wholly owned subsidiary, even as it increased the amount of money it promised to invest in U.S. Steel plants and gave guarantees that it wouldn’t lay off workers or close plants as it sought federal approval of the acquisition.
“We’re here today to celebrate a blockbuster agreement that will ensure this storied American company stays an American company,” Trump said as he opened an event at one of U.S. Steel’s warehouses. “You’re going to stay an American company, you know that, right?”
As for the tariffs, Trump said doubling the levies on imported steel “will even further secure the steel industry in the U.S.” But such a dramatic increase could push prices even higher.
Steel prices have climbed 16% since Trump became president in mid-January, according to the government’s Producer Price Index.
As of March 2025, steel cost $984 a metric ton in the United States, significantly more than the price in Europe ($690) or China ($392), according to the U.S. Commerce Department. The United States produced about three times more steel than it imported last year, with Canada, Brazil, Mexico and South Korea being the largest sources of steel imports.
Analysts have credited tariffs going back to Trump’s first term with helping strengthen the domestic steel industry, something that Nippon Steel wanted to capitalize on in its offer to buy U.S. Steel.
The United Steelworkers union remained skeptical.
Its president, David McCall, said in a statement that the union is most concerned “with the impact that this merger of U.S. Steel into a foreign competitor will have on national security, our members and the communities where we live and work.”
Trump stressed the deal would maintain American control of the storied company, which is seen as both a political symbol and an important matter for the country’s supply chain, industries like auto manufacturing and national security.
Trump, who has been eager to strike deals and announce new investments in the U.S. since retaking the White House, is also trying to satisfy voters, including blue-collar workers, who elected him as he called to protect U.S. manufacturing.
U.S. Steel has not publicly communicated any details of a revamped deal to investors. Nippon Steel issued a statement approving of the proposed “partnership” but also has not disclosed terms.
State and federal lawmakers who have been briefed on the matter describe a deal in which Nippon will buy U.S. Steel and spend billions on U.S. Steel facilities in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas and Minnesota. The company would be overseen by an executive suite and board made up mostly of Americans and protected by the U.S. government’s veto power in the form of a “golden share.”
Unionized steelworkers said there is some split opinion in the ranks over Nippon Steel’s acquisition, but that sentiment has shifted over time as they became more convinced that U.S. Steel would eventually shut down their Pittsburgh-area plants.
Clifford Hammonds, a line feeder at the plant where Trump spoke, said at the very least the deal will help upgrade the aging plant and help increase production.
“It’s putting money back into the plant to help rebuild it, because this plant is old, it’s falling apart. We ain’t really producing as much as we should be because, like I said, this place is old. It’s falling apart. We need some type of investment to fix the machines that we’ve got working,” Hammonds said.
No matter the terms, the issue has outsized importance for Trump, who last year repeatedly said he would block the deal and foreign ownership of U.S. Steel, as did former President Joe Biden.
Trump promised during the campaign to make the revitalization of American manufacturing a priority of his second term in office. And the fate of U.S. Steel, once the world’s largest corporation, could become a political liability in the midterm elections for his Republican Party in the swing state of Pennsylvania and other battleground states dependent on industrial manufacturing.
Trump said Sunday he wouldn’t approve the deal if U.S. Steel did not remain under U.S. control. He said it will keep its headquarters in Pittsburgh.
The president closed his remarks Friday by thanking steelworkers.
“With the help of patriots like you, we’re going to produce our own metal, unleash our own energy, secure our own future, build our country, control our destiny,” he said. “We are once again going to put Pennsylvania steel into the backbone of America like never before.”
In recent days, Trump and other U.S. officials began promoting Nippon Steel’s new commitment to invest $14 billion on top of its $14.9 billion bid, including building a new electric arc furnace steel mill somewhere in the U.S.
He was joined onstage Friday by several U.S. Steel workers, including Jason Zugai, vice president of the United Steelworkers local union at the Irvin finishing plant that defied the international union in supporting Nippon Steel’s bid to buy U.S. Steel.
Zugai, whose father had lost his job in a steel mill years earlier, lobbied local officials and members of Congress to support the deal, believing that U.S. Steel would otherwise shut down its Pittsburgh-area plants eventually.
In his remarks, Zugai told Trump, “I knew you wouldn’t let us down” and called Nippon Steel’s proposed $14 billion in investments into steel production in the U.S. “life-changing.”
Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz on Friday said a “strong Türkiye-European Union perspective” remains achievable, as Ankara pushes for a rapid resumption of talks to modernize the customs union with the bloc and address visa regulations.
Yılmaz’s remarks came following a meeting with EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos and her delegation in Ankara. Trade Minister Ömer Bolat was also present.
A statement following a separate meeting between Kos and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said they had agreed to continue work toward updating the EU-Türkiye Customs Union and to improve its implementation.
“They shared a willingness to work for paving the way for the modernization of the Customs Union and to achieve its full potential in order to support competitiveness, and economic security and resilience for both sides,” they said in a joint statement afterward.
The sides also welcomed the gradual resumption of European Investment Bank (EIB) operations in Türkiye and said they intended to support projects across the country and neighboring regions in cooperation with the bank.
Concrete steps ‘vital’
Yılmaz said talks with Kos and her delegation focused on the strategic nature of Türkiye-EU relations, the importance of a credible and fair enlargement policy, and the need for concrete progress in ties.
“Concrete steps regarding the full EU membership process, the modernization of the customs union, visa liberalization and the revitalization of high-level dialogue mechanisms are vital for Türkiye-EU relations, which are too important to be confined to narrow agendas,” he said on the social media platform NSosyal.
“We believe that a strong Türkiye-EU perspective, advancing on the basis of mutual interest and shared responsibility, as well as equality, merit and inclusivity, is possible.”
Türkiye has been an official candidate to join the EU since 1999, but its accession has been frozen for years over multiple disagreements.
The sides have in recent months shown signs of increased engagement and economic cooperation.
The EU-Türkiye Customs Union entered into force in 1995, but is limited to industrial goods and processed agricultural products. Türkiye and the business world have repeatedly called for talks to modernize the deal to restart, but no concrete steps have been taken.
New EU policies
Bolat said Friday’s talks focused on strengthening Türkiye-EU trade ties through a shared understanding of competitiveness and economic security.
Türkiye conveyed its expectation that the EU’s new trade and competition policies should remain compatible with the functioning of the customs union, he noted.
“In a highly positive atmosphere, we reaffirmed our mutual will to take concrete steps in trade on the basis of mutual benefit and to work together on a tangible and positive agenda,” Bolat said.
There was no immediate statement on any discussions about visa issues.
A Turkish Foreign Ministry source on Thursday said Fidan was expected to convey Türkiye’s expectation that the bloc’s move in July to ease visa regulations for Turks be implemented effectively.
Under a 2016 deal, Ankara significantly curbed migration to Europe and agreed to take back migrants who had crossed from its territory to Europe in return for EU aid to help fund more than four million refugees on Turkish soil.
After years of complaints regarding the bloc’s visa system, which the EU says was overwhelmed by applications, the EU decided to ease rules for Turks to use its open-border Schengen area.
Türkiye has spent more than $91 billion in the three years since the devastating earthquakes, according to official figures, as reconstruction, housing and infrastructure efforts continue across the disaster-hit southeastern region.
The quakes early on Feb. 6, 2023, were among Türkiye’s worst disasters that destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of buildings across 11 provinces, leaving more than 53,000 dead.
According to the Presidency of Strategy and Budget, total government spending for earthquake-related recovery reached TL 3.6 trillion ($91.5 billion) in the 2023-2025 period. An additional TL 653 billion has been allocated for the region in the 2026 budget.
The affected provinces were home to nearly 15 million people. Official figures show 53,697 people were killed and 107,213 injured. A total of 36,932 buildings collapsed, while 311,000 were rendered unusable.
Three years on, authorities say most housing has been delivered and the region is being rebuilt through infrastructure and production investments. Official data indicate around 85% of displaced residents have returned to their home cities.
Housing, reconstruction
A report released ahead of the third anniversary said 433,667 homes and 21,690 workplaces have been completed so far.
As of last month, the number of heavily or moderately damaged homes stood at 632,667, while damaged workplaces totaled 108,383, according to the Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Ministry.
The majority of funds were directed toward housing and shelter. Of the TL 146.8 billion collected in the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority’s (AFAD) donation account, TL 137.6 billion has been spent, including TL 43.5 billion for housing, TL 60.4 billion for tent and container infrastructure and TL 8.5 billion for relocation assistance.
Infrastructure, health, businesses
Spending also covered large-scale infrastructure rebuilding.
Authorities allocated TL 72 billion for 13,321 new classrooms, about TL 123 billion for hospitals and health care investments, TL 51.1 billion for electricity and energy infrastructure, TL 19.8 billion for highways and roads and TL 26.4 billion for railways.
The government also extended financial support to revive economic activity in the region.
Farmers received TL 17.4 billion in 2025, while loans to tradespeople and artisans reached TL 29.5 billion. Support for small and medium-sized enterprises totaled TL 47.9 billion, according to the report.
Earthquake recovery spending was backed by around $8.6 billion in international financing, bringing the total fiscal burden of the disaster to above $100 billion when indirect costs are included.
Bitcoin fell sharply on Thursday, with losses deepening as risk appetite weakened amid volatility in precious metals and a widespread selloff in technology stocks.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency fell to a low of $66,675.12, its weakest since October 2024, a month before Republican Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election, having signaled his intention to support crypto on the campaign trail. It was last down 6.5% at $67,817.
All told, the global crypto market has lost $2 trillion in value since hitting a peak of $4.379 trillion in early October, CoinGecko data showed, with some $800 billion wiped out in the last month alone.
Bitcoin has already fallen 11% for the week, taking its losses for the year so far to 23%. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization, was down more than 7% at $1,973 on Thursday. Ether has fallen nearly 14% this week, with losses of roughly 34% so far this year.
Sentiment on crypto was affected by the latest selling in metals and stocks. Gold and silver, for instance, have become more volatile as a result of leveraged buying and speculative flows. Silver, for one, fell as much as 16.6% to a low of $73.41.
In equities, the S&P 500 slid to near two-week lows, and the Nasdaq sank to its lowest level in more than two months on Thursday, as the AI theme came under renewed pressure.
“It’s clear the crypto market is now in full capitulation mode,” said Nic Puckrin, investment analyst and co-founder of Coin Bureau. “If previous cycles are anything to go by, this is no longer a short-term correction, but rather a transition from distribution to reset – and these typically take months, not weeks.”
The latest crypto tumble has knocked down shares of companies holding bitcoin and other digital assets, stoking worries that the market turmoil is spreading beyond token prices.
Markets ‘fear a hawk’ with Warsh
Trump’s selection of Kevin Warsh as his pick to become the next Federal Reserve (Fed) chair has also fueled the latest rout in cryptocurrencies, due to expectations he could shrink the Fed’s balance sheet.
Cryptocurrencies have widely been regarded as beneficiaries of a large balance sheet, having tended to rally while the Fed greased money markets with liquidity – a support for speculative assets.
“The market fears a hawk with him,” said Manuel Villegas Franceschi from the next generation research team at Julius Baer. “A smaller balance sheet is not going to provide any tailwinds for crypto.”
To be sure, cryptocurrencies have struggled for months since a record crash last October sent bitcoin tumbling from a peak as leveraged positions got washed out. That has left investors less keen on digital assets and sentiment toward the industry fragile.
“We believe this broader decline is mainly driven by massive withdrawals from institutional ETFs (exchange traded funds). These funds have seen billions of dollars flow out each month since the October 2025 downturn,” Deutsche Bank analysts said in a note to clients.
They added that U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs witnessed outflows of more than $3 billion in January, following outflows of about $2 billion and $7 billion in December and November, respectively.
“This steady selling in our view signals that traditional investors are losing interest, and overall pessimism about crypto is growing,” the analysts said.
Broader issues in tech sector
Bitcoin’s fortunes have been tied to the broader tech sector for some time. The price tended to rise, particularly on the back of investor enthusiasm over artificial intelligence.
This week’s rout in global software stocks has accelerated the slide in the value of bitcoin, ether and other tokens.
Market watchers are starting to question if this decline marks the start of a steeper correction.
“Concerns are being raised around the crypto miners and whether we could be looking at forced liquidations if prices continue to fall, which could lead to a vicious cycle,” Jefferies strategist Mohit Kumar said in a note.
“Our view on crypto has always been that it should be never more than a very small portion of the overall portfolio. However, it is also an asset class that is heavily owned, particularly by retail investors, and hence adds to the overall market risk,” Kumar said.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) announced on Thursday that it has launched an independent investigation into its CEO Borge Brende to clarify the nature of his relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Geneva-based organizer of the Davos summit said it was looking into disclosures from the U.S. Justice Department that showed Brende had had three business dinners with Epstein and had also communicated with the disgraced financier via email and text message.
“In light of these interactions, the Governing Board requested the Audit and Risk Committee to look into the matter, which subsequently decided to initiate an independent review,” the WEF said in a statement.
“This decision underscores the Forum’s commitment to transparency and maintaining its integrity,” it added.
The WEF said Brende, a former Norwegian foreign minister who has been CEO since 2017, fully supported the review, which he had requested himself.
Brende said in a statement he met Epstein in 2018 at a dinner in New York that he had been invited to by former Norwegian Deputy Prime Minister Terje Rod-Larsen.
Brende said he attended two similar dinners in 2019 with Epstein, along with diplomats and business leaders, but these events, along with “a few emails and SMS messages” were the full extent of their interaction.
“I was completely unaware of Epstein’s past and criminal activities,” Brende said in the statement, adding that he regretted not conducting a more thorough investigation into Epstein before meeting him.
“Had I known about his background, I would have declined the initial invitation to join Rod-Larsen and any subsequent dinner invitations or other communications,” Brende added.
He will continue his duties as CEO while outside counsel carry out the investigation, the WEF said.
Both the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of England (BoE) kept their interest rate policy unchanged on Thursday, as expected, despite inflation being largely under control in the eurozone area, while the vote in London was once again divided.
BoE said its main interest rate is unchanged at 3.75%, as inflation remains above target and economic growth is showing signs of picking up.
The decision was widely anticipated in financial markets, but the split on the nine-member rate-setting panel was much closer than expected. Five members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) opted to keep rates unchanged, while four voted for a quarter-point cut.
The central bank, which sets interest rates for the whole of the U.K., has been steadily reducing interest rates over the past 18 months, more often than not every three months. It last cut its key rate in December and indicated that further reductions are likely this year.
At that meeting, the policymakers were also split in the vote, which ended 5-4 in favor of the cut.
Economic forecasts accompanying the decision reinforced the view that further rate cuts are in the offing, as the bank is predicting that inflation will fall back to its 2% target in the coming months. It currently stands at 3.4%.
“We now think that inflation will fall back to around 2% by the spring,” said BoE Bank Governor Andrew Bailey. “That’s good news. We need to make sure that inflation stays there, so we’ve held rates unchanged at 3.75% today. All going well, there should be scope for some further reduction in Bank Rate this year.”
Britain’s Labour government, which has lost significant support since it won the general election in 2024, partly because of the economy, is counting on inflation falling sharply this year, which would allow the central bank to further reduce borrowing costs.
Lower interest rates help spur economic growth by reducing borrowing costs, which can lead to increased spending by consumers and boost investment by businesses. But that can also fuel higher prices.
Central bankers have to weigh those competing forces, trying to prevent inflation from eroding the value of earnings and savings without putting an unnecessary brake on economic growth.
ECB stays on 2%
Meanwhile, later on Thursday, the ECB also kept interest rates unchanged, shrugging off a dip in inflation while continuing to warn about an uncertain geopolitical environment.
The ECB left the rate it pays on bank deposits at 2%, where it has been since June, and reaffirmed that it expects inflation to stabilize at its goal, which is also 2%.
“(The ECB’s) updated assessment reconfirms that inflation should stabilize at its 2% target in the medium term,” the eurozone’s central bank said in a press release.
The bank said the economy remained “resilient in a challenging global environment,” highlighting low unemployment, solid private sector balance sheets and the gradual rollout of public spending on defence and infrastructure.
But it repeated its long-standing warning about an uncertain outlook, “owing particularly to ongoing global trade policy uncertainty and geopolitical tensions.”
Price growth in the 21 countries that share the euro slipped to 1.7% last month, its lowest level since September 2024, and is expected to stay slightly below the ECB’s target for at least a year.
The eurozone economy has nevertheless been picking up pace, with consumption and investments kicking into higher gear in the last three months of 2025.
But last week’s tumble in the U.S. dollar, volatility in commodity markets, the Trump administration’s war of words over Greenland and its pressure on the Federal Reserve (Fed) to cut rates are some of the reminders that the situation could quickly change.
With Thursday’s decision, the interest rates that banks pay to borrow at the ECB’s weekly and daily auctions were left unchanged at 2.15% and 2.40%, respectively.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance outlined a plan on Wednesday to marshal allies into a preferential trade bloc for critical minerals, proposing coordinated price floors as Washington intensifies efforts to loosen China’s dominance on materials crucial to advanced manufacturing.
China has wielded its chokehold on the processing of many minerals as geo-economic leverage, at times curbing exports, suppressing prices and undercutting other countries’ ability to diversify sources of the materials used to make semiconductors, electric vehicles and advanced weapons.
“We want to eliminate that problem of people flooding into our markets with cheap critical minerals to undercut our domestic manufacturers,” Vance told a gathering of visiting ministers in Washington without mentioning China.
“We will establish reference prices for critical minerals at each stage of production, … and for members of the preferential zone, these reference prices will operate as a floor maintained through adjustable tariffs to uphold pricing integrity,” Vance said.
India, Japan at meeting
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has stepped up efforts to secure American supplies of critical minerals after China rattled senior officials and global markets last year by withholding rare earths required by American automakers and other industrial manufacturers.
Trump on Monday launched a U.S. strategic stockpile of critical minerals, called Project Vault, backed by $10 billion in seed funding from the U.S. Export-Import Bank and $2 billion in private funding.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said 55 countries attended the talks in Washington, among them South Korea, India, Thailand, Japan, Germany, Australia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, all with varying refining or mining capabilities.
The minerals are “heavily concentrated in the hands of one country,” Rubio said, without referencing China, adding that the situation had become a “tool of leverage in geopolitics.”
At the meeting, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced a bilateral plan with Mexico and a trilateral agreement with the European Union and Japan to strengthen critical mineral supply chains and set the stage for a broader agreement with other allies.
The plans aim to explore specific measures such as price supports, market standards, subsidies, and guaranteed purchases to encourage production.
The U.S., EU, and Japan also said they would pursue other avenues, including discussions within the G-7 and the Minerals Security Partnership.
Argentina’s foreign ministry separately announced it had agreed on a framework agreement with the U.S. to strengthen and diversify supply chains as the South American nation looks to boost its copper and lithium exports.
Mineral companies’ shares drop
A multi-country effort to establish price floors of critical minerals is the Trump administration’s latest move to exert control over private business. The White House has taken stakes in several mineral companies as well as chipmaker Intel and has negotiated deals with drugmakers for lower prices.
Shares of mineral companies plunged on news of the trade bloc. MP Materials, Critical Metals, NioCorp Developments, and USA Rare Earth posted losses ranging from 6% to 14%.
By guaranteeing minimum prices through coordinated trade rules, Washington hopes to unlock private investment in mining and processing projects that have struggled to compete with cheaper Chinese supply.
Administration officials recently told the industry the U.S. is moving away from granting price floors to individual domestic projects as it seeks a global solution.
The approach could reshape global supply chains for materials essential to electric vehicles, semiconductors and defense systems, while raising costs for manufacturers in the short term and escalating trade tensions with Beijing.
“China has long played an important and constructive role in keeping the global industrial and supply chains of critical minerals safe and stable and is willing to continue to make active efforts in this regard,” China’s embassy in Washington told Reuters when asked about the meeting.
China’s expanded export controls on rare earths last year caused production delays and shutdowns for auto manufacturers in Europe and the U.S., and a China-generated glut of lithium has stalled plans to expand production in the U.S.
Such dependencies have unnerved Washington and its partners, which have struggled for years to implement policies to stand up durable domestic mining and processing alternatives for lithium, nickel, rare earths and other critical minerals.
Trump, who is expected to visit China in April, posted on Truth Social that he had an “excellent” call with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday morning to discuss a range of trade and security issues from soybeans to Iran, but he made no mention of minerals.
China’s leverage over critical minerals was on full display in October when Trump agreed to trim tariffs on Chinese goods in exchange for Beijing’s pledge to hold off on stricter restrictions on rare earths exports.
Wednesday’s gathering underscores a broader U.S. push to work with partners to counter China’s dominance in the sector by coordinating policy tools at a time when Trump has angered allies with his sweeping “America First” tariff policies.
“I think this is a recognition by the United States that it must act in concert with others to reduce its vulnerability in areas where China has supply dominance,” said Scott Kennedy, who leads the Chinese business and economics program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said on Tuesday that 11 more countries would be named to a critical minerals trade club this week, joining the U.S., Australia, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Thailand. He said 20 more countries showed “strong interest” in joining the coalition.
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