Many manufacturers are grappling with evolving tariff environment under President Trump. (Ryan Collerd/AFP via Getty Images)
The Trump administration is vigorously chasing a peace deal in Ukraine. It's displayed scarce interest in a ceasefire when it comes to settling its trade wars.
President Donald Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs are being expanded to include more everyday products like air conditioners, office furniture, knives, and energy products such as generators, according to a new notice posted Tuesday in the Federal Register by the Commerce Department. Motorcycles, bulldozers, and rail cars are also getting hit with the import taxes, which took effect Monday at midnight.
The notice was first posted late Friday by Customs and Border Protection. The remarkably rapid speed from announcement to implementation over the course of two days gave importers barely any time to fortify their supply chains against the latest tariff barrage from the Trump administration. It's not clear whether the newest tariffs apply to products already on their way to the United States.
"These actions are not about righting trade unfairness," Eric Johnson, a trade expert and director at S&P Global $SPGI, wrote in a social media post following the tariff advisory. "It's about making the job of importing insanely difficult, if not downright impossible."
Trump first applied the 25% steel and aluminum tariffs across the board with no exemptions to trade partners, arguing it would revitalize domestic manufacturing. Those duties were later hiked to 50% in June, which sparked frustration with Mexico, Canada and other close trading partners selling metals to the United States. Canada is the U.S.'s biggest supplier of steel and metal.
Double-digit tariffs are in effect already for most nations. Trump, though, has teased more tariffs for computer chips as soon as this week, though there would be carve-outs for companies that have pledged to expand their U.S. manufacturing. He recently forged a profit-sharing agreement with Nvidia $NVDA for the U.S. government to claim 15% of revenue from chip sales in China.
The Trump administration has threatened to ratchet up levies on India for buying Russian oil since it believes doing so weakens its effort to secure a ceasefire in Ukraine. On Tuesday morning, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent criticized New Delhi for its action.
“They are just profiteering. They are reselling,” Bessent said in a CNBC interview. “This is what I would call the Indian arbitrage — buying cheap Russian oil, reselling it as product.”
