Tariff criticism directed toward steel industry

Media reports, comments from industry trade associations and the formation of tariff opposition groups have combined to question whether the tariff policies of United States President Donald J. Trump are yielding positive economic results.

Comments were gathered from business owners in Arkansas and South Carolina for a mid-March Associated Press (AP) article on the impact of tariffs that also takes a look at recent government manufacturing statistics.

“My steel pricing jumped 25 percent two weeks before the tariffs went into effect for domestic steel,” the business owner from South Carolina is quoted as saying, adding, “The market price just jumped. It has stayed elevated.”

The manufacturing business owner in Arkansas also points to steel purchases as one of his pain points in the past 12 months, along with specialty equipment he needs that is produced in Europe.

AP also reported this week the Department of Labor’s producer price index, designed to measure inflation at the manufacturing and wholesale levels, rose by 3.4 percent this February compared with February 2025, signifying the largest increase in the past 12 months.

In the construction sector, the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) this week pointed to “sharp increases in metals prices” as one factor putting pressure on construction project budgets.

The rising metal prices have been joined by rising fuel prices since attacks on Iran were launched in late February, says the AGC.

“There is a limit to how many price increases the market can absorb before owners put projects on hold,” says Jeffrey D. Shoaf, the CEO of the AGC. “Reducing uncertainty around tariffs and stabilizing supply chains would go a long way toward helping contractors keep projects moving forward.”

A Washington-based organization called We Pay The Tariffs, which describes itself as a coalition of more than 1,000 small businesses, has been concentrating less on the steel sector and more on the “reciprocal tariffs” ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court earlier this winter. The group seeks refunds for the billions of dollars in tariffs it says its member companies have paid.

The AP article by its reporter Josh Boak says recent economic statistics do not portray a reshoring-based revival of the manufacturing sector, at least as measured by employment.

“Factories continue to shed workers, with 98,000 manufacturing jobs lost during Trump’s first full 12 months back in the White House,” he writes, citing U.S. Department of Labor statistics.

Tariffs in the steel sector have at times been cited favorably in comments accompanying the earnings reports of steel producers in the past 12 months.

“Looking ahead to 2026, we are encouraged by robust demand in several key end markets, historically strong backlogs and federal policies that support a vibrant domestic steel industry,” Leon Topalian, CEO of recycled-content steelmaker Nucor Corp. said this January.

Executives from Nucor and fellow recycled-content producer Steel Dynamics Inc. also testified that month at a meeting of the Congressional Steel Caucus in Washington, urging representatives to continue to restrict inbound steel.

The recent history of steel tariffs raises questions about how supportive of the overall manufacturing sector such policies may turn out to be.

“The failure of these tariffs to work as designed and the economic harm they caused provide a foreboding tale of what we should expect to see result from the Trump administration’s new tariffs on steel and aluminum,” wrote Erica York of the Washington-based Tax Foundation in 2018, as President Trump imposed tariffs in his first administration.

Referring to tariffs introduced by President George W. Bush in the 2000s, York added, “The effects of higher steel prices, largely a result of the steel tariffs, led to a loss of nearly 200,000 jobs in the steel consuming sector, a loss larger than the total employment of 187,500 in the steel producing sector at the time,” saying her figures came from a 2003 research paper prepared for a Washington-based foundation.

The current complaints from steel purchasers raise the question of whether tariffs in the mid-2020s are poised to yield a result similar to the one from 20 years ago, or whether adhering to tariffs for a longer stretch can cause a genuine restoration of manufacturing depth in the U.S.

Steelmakers in 2026 are producing steel at a higher volume than they were one year earlier, according to statistics gathered by the Washington-based American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI).

Year to date through March 14, 2026, more than 18.6 million tons of steel were made in the U.S., representing a 4.9 percent increase from the roughly 17.7 million tons made one year earlier, according to AISI.

However, weekly output figures from the trade group could be pointing to the types of warning signals given by AGC in the construction sector and the manufacturing business owners contacted by AP.

American steel output has declined in each of the three most recently completed weeks, according to AISI, dropping by figures of 0.3 percent, 1.1 percent and 0.9 percent consecutively.

Total output in the U.S. reached 1.817 million tons the week ending Feb. 21, 2026, but had drifted downward by a total of 2.36 percent to 1.774 million tons by the week ending March 14.