President Donald Trump said on Friday that he is doubling his tariff on steel to 50 percent, from 25 percent currently, to prevent billions of dollars worth of foreign steel from continuing to enter the United States. 

“At 50 percent, they can no longer get over the fence,” Trump said during a speech at a U.S. Steel facility in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, where he announced some details of a new “partnership” that will allow Japanese-owned Nippon Steel to acquire the iconic American company.

Trump initially imposed a 25 percent tariff on steel during his first term in office under a national security trade provision known as Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act. After returning in January for a second term, he canceled deals that the Biden administration made with Japan, the U.K. and the EU to ease the impact of those tariffs. He also further tightened the duties by eliminating a program that allowed importers to seek exemptions for individual steel products. 

His announcement on Friday came after two court rulings this week that struck down his use of another authority, the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, to impose sweeping reciprocal tariffs on countries around the world as well as duties aimed specifically at China, Canada and Mexico. A third federal court promptly issued a temporary stay of one of the rulings, keeping the tariffs in effect, for now.

In the aftermath of those rulings, administration officials have said they would rely on other authorities, like Section 232, to impose duties, while expressing confidence they would win their case to preserve the IEEPA duties on appeal.

Still, Trump’s move on Friday could complicate efforts to strike trade deals with the EU and other trading partners, who continue to seek relief from the steel tariffs. 

The main U.S. steel industry group praised Trump’s move, noting that Chinese steel exports to the world have more than doubled since 2020. 

“Given these challenging international conditions that show no signs of improvement, this tariff action will help prevent new surges in imports that would injure American steel producers and their workers,” Kevin Dempsey, president of the American Iron and Steel Institute, said in a statement. 

During his speech, Trump provided some details of the nearly $15 billion deal to allow Japanese-owned Nippon Steel to buy U.S. Steel, but left other questions unanswered.

“Most importantly, U.S. Steel will continue to be controlled by the U.S.A. Otherwise I wouldn’t have done the deal,” Trump told hundreds of steelworkers and enthusiastic supporters crowded inside the steel facility. Trump did not explain how that would work; neither the White House nor the companies involved provided additional information on Friday.

Trump did give some details of $14 billion in investments that he said Nippon would make. That includes $2.2 billion to increase steel production in the Mon Valley near Pittsburgh and another $7 billion “to modernize steel mills, expand ore mines and build state-of-the-art facilities in Indiana, Minnesota, Alabama and Arkansas.” The bulk of those expenditures will be made in the next 14 months, the president said. 

The deal also guarantees U.S. Steel will maintain all of its current operating blast furnaces at full capacity for a minimum of the next 10 years. “There will be no layoffs and no outsourcing whatsoever, and every U.S. Steel worker will soon receive a well deserved $5,000 bonus,” Trump said. 

Trump’s trip to West Mifflin marks the latest and possibly final chapter in a deal that became ensnared in U.S. presidential politics. U.S. Steel announced in December 2023 that it had accepted Nippon’s $14.9 billion offer, prompting immediate blowback from the influential United Steelworkers union and its allies in Congress. One month later, Trump promised to “block it instantaneously” if voters sent him back to the White House for a second term.

As president-elect, Trump reiterated his opposition to the sale in early January, not long after outgoing President Joe Biden squashed it on national security grounds, a justification critics said was unpersuasive given Japan’s longtime status as a treaty ally.

But by then, roughly a half-dozen GOP lawmakers from Pennsylvania and other states with U.S. Steel operations had already begun work to persuade Trump to reverse Biden’s decision, arguing it was needed to prevent major manufacturing job losses.

Trump responded by instructing his team, including U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, to push Nippon Steel to increase its promise of billions in investments in the company’s steel infrastructure in exchange for approval.

The historic steel deal is a blow for the leaders of the United Steelworkers union, who supported Ohio-based Cleveland-Cliffs’ competing bid to buy U.S. Steel and fought hard to block Nippon’s more generous acquisition plan.

On Friday, Steelworkers President David McCall said he was still waiting to see details of the deal, including whether it includes giving the U.S. government “a golden share” that allows it to exert some control over the combined company. 

“There is a vast difference between public relations and putting commitments in writing, just as there is a vast difference between allowing shareholders and executives to cash-out and putting workers’ interests first,” McCall said. 

“Any final deal that may emerge from discussions between the merger parties and the federal government must be viewed through that lens, and not the lens of wishful thinking that has been adopted by far too many politicians and others,” he added.