'Retaliation' for Steel, Aluminum Tariffs Could Pose 'National Security Threat,' Shapiro Says

CTA President Gary Shapiro criticized President Donald Trump’s plan to impose 25 percent tariffs on all foreign steel imports and a 10 percent duty on foreign aluminum, in a pair of Friday tweets. “Top foreign steel and aluminum suppliers -- NAFTA partners Canada and Mexico and KORUS partner S. Korea -- don’t pose national security threat, but retaliation could,” Shapiro tweeted. The proposed “25% tariff on steel poses threat to U.S. trade, economic security, U.S. manufacturing and consumer pricing,” Shapiro tweeted seconds later. National Retail Federation President Matthew Shay agrees the tariffs would be “a tax on American families,” he said in a Thursday statement. “When costs of raw materials like steel and aluminum are artificially driven up, all Americans ultimately foot the bill in the form of higher prices for everything from canned goods to electronics and automobiles. The reality is that there is nothing this country will gain from such a one-sided policy. These tariffs threaten to destroy more U.S. jobs than they will create while sending an alarming signal to our trading partners and diminishing markets for American-made products overseas." Trump doesn’t fear a trade war, he tweeted in the wee hours of Friday morning. “When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win,” he said.