Trump’s Tariffs Prompt Global Threats of Retaliation<br />By ANA SWANSONMARCH 2, 2018<br />WASHINGTON — A day after President Trump took a swing at United States trading partners by threatening stiff<br />and sweeping tariffs on steel and aluminum, they hit back.<br />Yet the United States does not control the global economy,<br />and the tariffs, which Mr. Trump is expected to sign next week, could incite other countries to challenge it at the World Trade Organization.<br />Robert L. Shanks, Ford Motor’s chief financial officer, said commodities markets had already started to price in increases for steel<br />and aluminum on the expectation that Mr. Trump would impose the tariffs.<br />Those levies would harm the farmers and business interests<br />that the Trump administration has promised to protect and would fuel a trade fight that could undermine the president’s goal of strengthening American industry.<br />Li Xinchuang, the vice chairman of the China Iron and Steel Association, called the president’s move “stupid,”<br />saying, “Trump’s decision does no good to everyone except a few American steel enterprises.”<br />And John M. Weekes, Canada’s negotiator for the North American Free Trade Agreement in<br />the early 1990s, said the president’s “notion is going down very badly in Canada.”<br />“It certainly will have a negative effect on our bilateral relationship,” he said.
