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Donald Trump’s return to the White House as the 47th President of the United States after his victory in the 2024 election against Kamala Harris has already sparked intense speculation about how his economic and trade policies may affect the global environment.
After a first term characterised by protectionist measures and the famous ‘America First‘ policy, Trump may return to imposing tariffs and restrictive measures on imports, causing concern among the US’s main trading partners.
Summarising Trump’s Trade Policies: Duties and Tariffs in the First Mandate
Between 2017 and 2021, the Trump administration imposed a series of tariffs on a wide range of imported products, including solar panels, home appliances, steel and aluminium. These measures targeted China, Mexico, Canada and the European Union, thus affecting the main players in the global aluminium market.
- March 2018: The Trump administration imposed tariffs on products of Chinese origin, including aluminium, following an anti-dumping investigation. The duties on imports from China involved trade worth $380 billion, with a fiscal increase of almost $80 billion. Among them, an additional 10% duty was imposed on imported aluminium, worth USD 17.6 billion.
- May 2019: after trade tensions with Mexico, Canada and the European Union, an agreement was reached to eliminate duties on aluminium, ending a phase of confrontation that had generated instability in trade relations between the countries.
- December 2019: Trump announced duties on metals imported from Brazil and Argentina, accusing the two countries of devaluing their currencies to make their products more competitive on the global market. However, the administration abandoned this idea a few days later, as economists rejected this interpretation.
- February 2020: Trump expanded the scope of the duties to include aluminium and steel derivatives such as wire, staples and nails, introducing additional tariffs of 10% for aluminium and 20% for steel.
- August 2020: tariffs were reintroduced on unalloyed aluminium from Canada, with a trade value of approximately USD 2.5 billion. However, only a month later, Canada was exempted from these duties, in an attempt to safeguard the relationship between the two countries.
With the end of the Trump presidency and the beginning of the Biden administration, some of these tariffs were replaced by a tariff quota system, where only imports above a certain threshold would encounter duties.
However, despite the change, the US aluminium and steel sector continues to face pressure, with tariffs representing about $2.7 billion out of a total of $79 billion in import duties.
Global Reactions to Trump’s Comeback and Concerns over New Tariffs
Trump’s re-election has caused alarm among many nations, fearful of a possible new wave of tariffs, especially after Trump, during the campaign, threatened to introduce a global minimum tariff of 10% on all imported goods.
Canada, Mexico, and the European Union are already considering strategies to prevent a return to heavy tariffs that could undermine their economies.