Trump will move this week on steel, aluminum tariffs, aides say, dismissing warnings of trade war

Administration officials signaled Sunday that President Trump is determined to impose punishing tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, brushing aside an outcry from foreign allies, U.S. manufacturers, Republican lawmakers and other presidential advisors that he may ignite a damaging trade war.

Both Trump's Commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, and White House trade advisor Peter Navarro, the apparent winners of an internal administration battle over the issue, said that they expect the president to follow up swiftly on his surprise announcement Thursday that he would invoke a little-used legal provision to singlehandedly impose duties of 25% on imported steel and 10% on aluminum.

"We expect probably by the end of the week it will be signed," Navarro said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Navarro and Ross, making the rounds of news-talk shows, each suggested that Trump was unlikely to exempt allied countries from the tariffs, despite national-security concerns raised by some of his own advisors about the move. The president has instead invoked national security as a reason to press ahead with the tariffs.

"As soon as he starts exempting countries [from the tariffs], he has to raise the tariff on everybody else," Navarro said on "Fox News Sunday." Making trade allowances for good friends, he contended, was impractical: "As soon as he exempts one country, his phone starts ringing from the heads of state of other countries." - Read More, latimes

Trump will move this week on steel, aluminum tariffs, aides say, dismissing warnings of trade war