Trump says he’ll impose 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum imports; reciprocal duties are coming soon

President Trump hinted at a momentous week for trade policies over the weekend. Yahoo Finance’s Ben Werschkul reports:

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Yahoo Finance’s Jordan Weissmann reports:

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President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he will introduce new 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the US, stepping up his fast-moving overhaul of trade policy.

Trump told reporters on Air Force One that the new duties will be announced on Monday, but didn’t say when they would be implemented, per Reuters and other media outlets.

The new metals tariffs mark a step-up in trade restrictions on top US trading partners, given they apply to all countries. Canada and Mexico are big suppliers of steel and aluminum to the US, and they currently benefit from duty-free exemptions on those imports, per Reuters. The US neighbors are already facing a threatened 25% tariff on products across the board, though those have been paused until early March.

About one-quarter of all steel used in the US is sourced from other countries, with the EU and Japan also among the suppliers. While China is a key producer of steel, it contributes less than 2% to the total imported.

In a new episode of the Capitol Gains podcast, Yahoo Finance anchor Madison Mills, Washington Correspondent Ben Werschkul, and Senior Columnist Rick Newman discuss the tariff whiplash of the past week.

“The tariffs on China are probably here to stay,” Newman said of the 10% across-the-board tariffs on Chinese imports that went into effect. “The threatened and then withdrawn 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico — maybe not.”

Asia Society Policy Institute vice president Wendy Cutler also joined the show, noting that China’s retaliation was “measured” and signaled China doesn’t want to escalate the trade war.

“I don’t think it’s out of the question that at some point we may be at a negotiating table with China trying to negotiate a ‘phase two’ trade agreement,” Cutler said.

Watch the full episode of Capitol Gains here.

It looks like Shein and Temu just got a major reprieve from the White House.

On Friday, the Trump administration put on hold its plans to curtail the so-called de minimis exemption, a longstanding rule that allows packages worth less than $800 to be shipped into the US tariff-free, which has powered the rise of discount Chinese retailers that send clothes and other merchandise straight to consumers (not to mention countless dropshipping operations).

President Trump had sought to close the loophole for goods from China as part of the new 10% tariff he imposed on the country’s merchandise this week. The move caused some immediate confusion over how it would be implemented, given that US authorities don’t appear to have the resources in place to process the more than 1.36 billion annual packages that fall under the de minimis rule. The US Postal Service initially announced Tuesday night that it would pause all package deliveries from China, before reversing itself the next morning.

Trump’s new executive order essentially says it will keep the de minimis exemption open until the Commerce Secretary can ensure that “adequate systems are in place” to process all the packages and collect tariff revenue once it’s closed.

So yeah, Shein on you crazy shoppers. For now anyway.

Yahoo Finance’s Ines Ferré reports:

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Yahoo Finance’s Dan Howley reports on how Big Tech firms including Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG, GOOGL), Nvidia (NVDA), and Intel (INTC) are getting squeezed by escalating trade tensions between the US and China:

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Tariffs have become a major buzzword on retail companies’ earnings calls. But on a recent episode of Yahoo Finance’s Opening Bid podcast, BMO Capital Markets retail analyst Simeon Siegel argued investors’ emphasis on tariffs may be overdone, Yahoo Finance’s Grace Williams writes.

“We’re focusing on tariffs too much,” Siegel told Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi. “From a pure business perspective, a tariff is just a cost input going up.”

Siegel covered retail during the first Trump administration when tariffs impacted the medical, solar, and steel industries. However, this time around, tariffs are expected to substantially affect retailers.

Tariffs have sent retail execs at Gap (GAP), Polo Ralph Lauren (RL), Williams Sonoma (WSM), and others to sourcing out of China to contain costs.

“It’s a pressure point,” Ralph Lauren CEO Patrice Louvet told Sozzi at the World Economic Forum in late January. “But again, I think we can work through it, and we can manage it.”

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A new paper from the Boston Fed’s Omar Barbiero and Hillary Stein estimates President Trump’s tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China could raise core inflation by 0.5 to 0.8 percentage points.

The analysis factored in price changes for direct imports as well as imported components. From the authors:

Yahoo Finance’s Ben Werschkul provides an update on US Trade Representative (USTR) nominee Jamieson Greer’s confirmation hearing, where tariffs and trade remained a key line of questioning:

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Ford (F) CEO Jim Farley warned that if tariffs on Canada and Mexico go into effect — and stay that way for some time — auto profits would take a major hit.

Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi reports.

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Central banks and investors are piling into gold as concerns about geopolitics, inflation, and diversification remain in focus.

Yahoo Finance’s Ines Ferré reports:

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Chipotle (CMG), which sources some of its avocados, tomatoes, limes, and peppers from Mexico, is monitoring US trade talks with Mexico ahead of the March 4 tariff deadline, when a 25% duty is expected to go into effect for Canadian and Mexican imports.

Chipotle CFO Adam Rymer told Yahoo Finance in an interview that the fast-casual chain will be “very patient” with tariffs and won’t raise prices in the near term, Yahoo Finance’s Brooke DiPalma reported.

“As the tariffs come in, we’re able to absorb these costs for a very long period of time,” Rymer said. He noted that if the tariffs are enacted and become “permanent,” Chipotle would pass that increase along to consumers.

Watch the full interview below or read more here.

On Sunday, President Trump warned that Americans could feel “some pain” from his tariff policies but that it would be “worth the price paid.” However, as Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Rick Newman points out, consumers may be less tolerant of price hikes than they were during Trump’s first administration after enduring the recent bout of inflation.

Newman writes:

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More Wall Street firms are pointing to tariffs as they revise their outlooks for Fed rate cuts this year. In a note to clients Tuesday, Morgan Stanley (MS) reduced its outlook to one 25 basis point rate cut this year from two previously.

“Imposing tariffs more quickly than we assumed would likely mean disinflation halts at a higher pace of inflation, blocking any near-term path to cuts,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note on Tuesday, as reported by Reuters.

In a separate note obtained by Yahoo Finance, Goldman Sachs (GS) chief economist Jan Hatzius wrote that the firm now sees US tariffs on Chinese goods rising another 10 percentage points and potentially even higher. From Hatzius:

Goldman still sees two Fed rate cuts this year, as does its peer, Wells Fargo (WFC).

Yahoo Finance’s Josh Schafer reports:

President Donald Trump’s tariffs plans have been front and center for investors over the past week, causing investor angst and, at times, jumpy market action.

But looking past the noisy headlines, the stock market has shown several signs of strength, providing equity strategists with ample reason to believe the path higher for stocks remains intact.

Since last Monday’s DeepSeek-driven AI sell-off in markets, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) is actually up about 0.3%. And despite some sharp downturns, particularly in premarket trading, the benchmark index saw less than a 1% decline on Friday and Monday when tariff speculation was running rampant.

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Fast fashion is set to take a hit with Donald Trump’s tariffs closing a loophole that has given e-commerce retailers Temu and Shein a competitive edge.

As Yahoo Finance’s Jordan Weissman reports:

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