Some top American steel producers are cheering on U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on foreign steel while raising prices on their own products, with one steelmaker urging Canada to copy Trump’s protectionist trade policies.
Both Cleveland-Cliffs and Steel Dynamics said in their latest quarterly earnings reports this week that they are charging buyers about 14 per cent more than they did in the previous quarter, while Acerinox said it is considering doing the same as soon as this fall.
Economists say such price increases are a natural result of tariffs, and are warning Canada to avoid the Trump administration’s “sledgehammer” approach that ends up squeezing buyers.
“A scalpel approach is much more necessary here, because it’s so complex,” said Harish Krishnan, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business who focuses on supply chain management.
