Trump Doubles Steel and Aluminum Tariffs to 50%, Sparing Only the U.K.

Effective June 4, 2025, the Trump administration doubled Section 232 tariffs on imported steel and aluminum from 25% to 50%. The increase, announced in a White House fact sheet, applied to raw metals and to a long list of derivative products, and was issued under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows the President to adjust imports that threaten national security. The United Kingdom was the sole exception, held at 25% pending progress on the U.S.-U.K. Economic Prosperity Deal, with possible rate changes or quotas from July 9, 2025.

The move mattered on two levels. It raised input costs across construction, autos, packaging and appliances at a moment when the administration's separate emergency-powers tariffs were already under legal attack, and it demonstrated that Section 232 offered a more durable statutory footing than the IEEPA authority a federal trade court had rejected the week before. Because Section 232 requires a Commerce Department national-security finding rather than an emergency declaration, the metals tariffs were insulated from that litigation.

The 50% rate took effect as scheduled and remained the baseline for steel and aluminum imports through the rest of 2025.