Business
Trump Imposes 25% Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum From Foreign Countries
President Trump announced sweeping tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum on Monday, re-upping a policy from his first term that pleased domestic metal makers but hurt other American industries and ignited trade wars on multiple fronts.
The president signed two official proclamations that would impose a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum from all countries. Mr. Trump, speaking from the Oval Office on Monday evening, called the moves “a big deal.”
“It’s time for our great industries to come back to America,” the president said.
A White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly told reporters on Monday that the move was evidence of Mr. Trump’s commitment to use tariffs to put the United States on equal footing with other nations. In contrast with Mr. Trump’s first term, the official said, no exclusions to the tariffs for American companies that rely on foreign steel and aluminum will be allowed.
The measures were welcomed by domestic steelmakers, who have been lobbying the Trump administration for protection against cheap foreign metals.
But the tariffs are likely to rankle America’s allies like Canada and Mexico, which supply the bulk of U.S. metal imports. They could also elicit retaliation on U.S. exports, as well as pushback from American industries that use metals to make cars, food packaging and other products. Those sectors will face significantly higher prices after the tariffs go into effect.
That is what happened in Mr. Trump’s first term, when the president levied 25 percent tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum. While Mr. Trump and President Joseph R. Biden Jr. eventually rolled back those tariffs on most major metal suppliers, the levies were often replaced with other trade barriers, like quotas on how much foreign metal could come into the United States.
Studies have shown that while Mr. Trump’s first round of metal tariffs helped American steel and aluminum producers, they ended up hurting the broader economy because they raised prices for many other industries, including the auto sector.
The steel tariffs followed other intense trade threats. In his three weeks in office, the president has already threatened more tariffs globally than he did in his entire first term, when he imposed tariffs on foreign solar panels, washing machines, metals and more than $300 billion of products from China.
Since Jan. 20, Mr. Trump has put an additional 10 percent tariff on all products from China, and came within hours of imposing sweeping tariffs on Canada and Mexico that would have brought U.S. tariff rates to a level not seen since the 1940s. Together, those moves would have affected more than $1.3 trillion of goods.
Speaking from the Oval Office on Monday, Mr. Trump said his steel tariffs were “the first of many” to come. He said his team would be meeting over the next four weeks to discuss tariffs on cars, pharmaceuticals, chips and other goods.
Mr. Trump said on Sunday that he also planned to move forward this week with so-called reciprocal tariffs, which would raise certain U.S. tariff rates to match those of foreign countries.
American steelmakers welcomed the tariffs. In a statement on Sunday, Kevin Dempsey, the president of the American Iron and Steel Institute, said the group welcomed Mr. Trump’s “continued commitment to a strong American steel industry, which is essential to America’s national security and economic prosperity.”
But industries that use metals to make other products said overly broad protections would hurt them.
“Tariffs and other broad trade tools can make America great again, but there are unintended consequences for our nation’s food security when a tariff is placed on tin-plate steel,” said Robert Budway, the president of the Can Manufacturers Institute, which represents companies that make cans for fruits and vegetables.
The United Steelworkers union, which has members in Canada, said that it welcomed Mr. Trump’s effort to help the industry but that “Canada is not the problem.”
The new measures will mainly affect U.S. allies. The largest supplier of steel to the United States in 2024 was Canada, followed by Brazil, Mexico, South Korea and Vietnam, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute. Canada is also a major supplier of aluminum to the United States, followed distantly by the United Arab Emirates, Russia and China.
Late Monday, the governments of Canada, Mexico and Brazil had yet to respond to the tariffs. Brazil’s government said it did not have a response to Mr. Trump’s announcement of steel tariffs because it had not yet received any official communication from the U.S. government on the issue.
In his first term, Mr. Trump levied tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum using a national security provision called Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act. That angered allies like Mexico, Canada and the European Union, which said they were not a security threat.
Mr. Trump used those tariffs as a negotiating tool. His officials reached agreements with Australia, South Korea and Brazil, and rolled back some of those barriers on Canada and Mexico when they signed a revised trade agreement with the United States. The Biden administration later reached agreements with the European Union, Britain and Japan to roll back some of their trade restrictions.
The United States imports very little steel or aluminum directly from China, since Chinese exports have long been blocked by a variety of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariffs. But some argue that China’s excess steel production is still flooding other markets and pushing down global prices, leaving U.S. metal makers at a disadvantage in other markets.
Brad Setser, an economist at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Chinese steel exports had basically doubled over the past two years and were creating economic issues globally as they flooded foreign markets, including in Asia and Latin America.
But Mr. Setser said he saw little evidence that Chinese steel was being routed into the United States through Canada or Mexico and undermining the U.S. industry.
“It’s pretty hard to make the case that the surge in Chinese exports globally has triggered a reduction in U.S. production,” he said. “U.S. production has been fairly stable.”
After Mr. Trump put steel tariffs into effect in 2018, U.S. steel imports steadily declined. But that trend reversed during the pandemic, when blast furnaces shuttered and supply chains seized up, and U.S. steelmakers were slower than competitors in Mexico to open back up, Mr. Setser said.
In the last few years, U.S. steel imports have been relatively flat, though they are slightly above the level when Mr. Trump imposed tariffs in his first term.
U.S. unions and major companies like Cleveland-Cliffs and U.S. Steel, which are influential with government, have argued that current protections are insufficient to keep them in business. Amid its financial struggles, U.S. Steel, the iconic Pennsylvania company, agreed to be acquired by Nippon Steel of Japan. That merger was blocked by Mr. Biden, who said he wanted to U.S. Steel to remain an American company.
Supporters of the tariffs have argued that the United States needs strong metal makers for its national defense.
Nazak Nikakhtar, a partner at the law firm Wiley Rein and an official in the first Trump administration, said the president was again “making good on his promise to impose tariffs globally and to increase tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, given their criticality to national security.”
But many economists argue that tariffs on raw materials like steel will hurt the economy, since they raise prices for other manufacturers.
A study by the nonpartisan International Trade Commission, for example, found that Mr. Trump’s earlier tariffs encouraged consumers of steel and aluminum to buy more American metals. The increase in demand pushed up metal prices and allowed American metal makers to expand, resulting in $2.25 billion of additional U.S. production of steel and aluminum in 2021.
But the tariffs also raised costs for industries that buy steel and aluminum to make other things, like industrial machinery, car parts and hand tools. Altogether, industries that consume steel and aluminum saw their production shrink by $3.48 billion as a result of the those higher costs — more than offsetting what the steel and aluminum makers had gained.
Other industries are concerned about being caught in the crossfire and targeted with tariffs as other countries retaliate. China imposed retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas, coal, farm machinery and other products on Monday in response to the tariffs Mr. Trump put on China last week because of its role in the fentanyl trade.
Mexico, Canada and the European Union have all drawn up lists of American products they could strike with their own levies in response to U.S. measures.
In response to Mr. Trump’s first metal tariffs, for example, the European Union imposed a 25 percent tariff on American whiskey. A deal negotiated by the American and European governments to suspend those tariffs is set to expire soon. If another agreement is not reached, the European Union is set to double that tariff to 50 percent on April 1.
Chris Swonger, the chief executive of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, said in a statement that the tariff would have a “catastrophic outcome” for 3,000 small distilleries across the United States.
“We are urging that the U.S. and E.U. move swiftly to find a resolution,” Mr. Swonger said. “Our great American whiskey industry is at stake.”
Colby Smith and Norimitsu Onishi contributed reporting.
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Business
Billionaire exodus? California drew 10 times more venture capital than any other state this year
Despite concerns that California’s costs and regulations are bad for business, the state has attracted an unprecedented pile of capital this year, and no other state is even close.
The Golden State’s deep pool of talent, rich investors and other tech infrastructure have made it ground zero for the artificial intelligence explosion. That has helped it attract more than $335 billion in venture capital funding this year, according to PitchBook’s private market funding data released Thursday.
Its next biggest competitor, New York, raised less than a tenth of California’s total. Texas raised 1/40th of the amount.
“California has far and away the most [deals], obviously, a huge amount of that sits in the [San Francisco] Bay Area,” said Kyle Stanford, director of U.S. venture capital research at PitchBook. “Los Angeles, San Diego has a really strong tech market that I think benefits a lot from capital moving easily between San Francisco and L.A.”
Although a campaign for a new tax on billionaires has convinced some ultra-rich residents to shift to other states and businesses often complain that high property and energy costs and an anti-business regulatory regime make it too tough to make money in the state, the inability of the top talent, companies and investors in AI to set up elsewhere shows California’s enduring attraction.
The state’s economy grew 5% last year to a record $4.25 trillion, making it larger than every country other than the U.S., China and Germany. It is home to nearly 400 billion-dollar startups — more than any other state, according to CB Insights.
Southern California has emerged as a go-to address for fast-growing space and defense tech companies.
“California’s workers, entrepreneurs, and innovators continue to prove that investing in California delivers real results,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement last week in response to strong productivity numbers for the state. “As one of the largest economies in the world, the Golden State demonstrates that a strong workforce, economic growth, innovation, and performance go hand in hand.”
In the three months that ended in June, 1,087 California companies raised $108.8 billion in venture capital. Just three companies — Anthropic, Jeff Bezos’ Project Prometheus and Anduril Industries — absorbed 75% of that total. Anthropic alone raised $65 billion, which valued it at nearly $1 trillion.
Among metropolitan regions, Los Angeles ranked behind only Silicon Valley and New York, which attracted $98 billion and $11.5 billion in venture investment, respectively.
“Capital is flowing back into American innovation with real force,” said Bobby Franklin, president of the National Venture Capital Assn., an industry group that put out the report with PitchBook. “Investment activity is picking up, fundraising is improving, and there are early signs the IPO market is beginning to reopen.”
Investors poured in nearly $8 billion across 207 deals in the Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Santa Ana metro areas, up 28% from a year earlier, according to PitchBook.
The top deals in the region were led by aerospace and defense companies Anduril Industries, which raised $5 billion, and Impulse Space, which attracted $500 million.
Companies in industrial parts, software, consulting and life sciences were the other sectors in the Southland that attracted venture investments. El Segundo-based industrial supplies company Advanced Manufacturing Company of America and Huntington Beach-based aerospace company Mach Industries each raised $300 million.
To be sure, the surge in the size and number of monster deals could be overshadowing other money-raising efforts from smaller companies and investment by smaller funds, industry experts said.
Nearly 90% of invested dollars went to AI firms, up from last year, when around 65% of new funds were allocated to AI.
“If you’re a tech company and you’re not an AI company, you have a very, very difficult opportunity ahead of you to raise capital,” Stanford said.
This concentration of capital in AI leaves smaller, middle-of-the-road venture funds without large AI holdings struggling to return capital to their investors.
Only the largest funds, such as Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital — which possess the war chest to back OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX — stand to gain from their initial public offerings of stock.
“It’s going to concentrate the fundraising over the next few years as well into these already very large names,” Stanford said.
Beyond the two potential blockbuster listings — Anthropic and OpenAI, each valued around $1 trillion — the IPO pipeline is thin.
“We don’t really have a strong IPO market,” Stanford said. “Obviously, SpaceX’s IPO is great. OpenAI and Anthropic, if they go out this year, will be very large drivers of distribution. But a vast majority of investors do not have exposure to them, and so that money will not make it back to them.”
Whether California’s venture-investing boom can continue at this record-breaking pace now hinges on how the IPOs of Anthropic and OpenAI perform.
“If Anthropic and OpenAI have really strong financials, that’s a big push of support for the rest of the market,” Stanford said.
Waymo, the driverless taxi company that operates in more than 10 cities, will soon serve customers in San Diego.
The company has been testing its autonomous vehicles in San Diego with a safety driver behind the wheel since earlier this year. Rides without a human driver became available to employees Thursday and will open to members of the public later this year.
Waymo, which announced the expansion Wednesday, will also bring its taxis to Tampa, Las Vegas and Denver.
“If you’re in one of these four new cities, download the app to be notified when it’s time to ride,” the company said in a blog post.
Waymo has offered fully autonomous rides in San Francisco since 2022 and in Los Angeles since 2024.
It also serves customers in Nashville, Phoenix, Miami and other cities.
In May, Waymo launched a cheaper robotaxi dubbed the Ojai, which is better equipped for difficult driving conditions such as snowy roads.
The Ojai will supplement Waymo’s fleet of Jaguar I-Paces, the company said. In San Diego, services will be provided with the Ojai.
Waymo also announced Wednesday it’s beginning autonomous driving with a safety driver in its newest retrofitted vehicle, the Hyundai IONIQ 5.
“This phase allows us to validate our technology for fully autonomous operations as we work to bring riders even more ways to enjoy Waymo in the future,” the company said.
The company plans to eventually have tens of thousands of driverless taxis made per year, starting with the Ojai, then scaling using the IONIQ 5s.
The move into San Diego and three other cities widens the gap between Waymo and its competitors in the robotaxi race.
Elon Musk’s Tesla robotaxis and Amazon-owned Zoox are shuttling customers autonomously, but are nowhere near the scale at which Waymo operates.
Other companies are working on autonomous trucks and freight trains.
Waymo’s San Diego service area will include Pacific Beach, Normal Heights, La Playa and Southcrest, among other neighborhoods, the company said.
StubHub is getting a red card from some World Cup fans
Two World Cup customers are suing the New York-based ticket-selling company, alleging “false and misleading” advertising that left them without tickets or a refund for the World Cup games they paid to attend.
In federal court in New York last week, two Californians — Julia Reeker Moghal and Reuben Renteria — sued StubHub seeking monetary damages and a ban on the company selling World Cup tickets. The lawsuit aims to become a class action and comes after weeks of fierce criticism and complaints from customers regarding the company’s practices.
Throughout the World Cup, videos have emerged on Instagram and TikTok of StubHub customers describing their nightmare experiences with the ticket-selling platform.
Some said they had purchased tickets to World Cup games as early as November of last year, booked flights and hotels and arranged travel plans, then StubHub notified them days to weeks before the match of a refund for their tickets, which they never requested.
There were similar complaints about last-minute cancellations from people who bought Coachella tickets on StubHub.
In the lawsuit, Moghal said she had purchased three tickets for nearly $2,000 for the June 18 match between Switzerland and Bosnia-Herzegovina at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, which were then canceled by StubHub. Moghal said she was contacted by StubHub and told her tickets would remain canceled, then was later told the tickets would be available one hour before the game.
When the match began, Moghal said she was at SoFi Stadium, but the tickets never came.
Renteria said he paid around $2,300 for the June 18 Mexico versus South Korea match in Guadalajara, Mexico, but they were canceled
“Devoted soccer fans have traveled from around the world to attend World Cup matches — and they reasonably relied on StubHub to provide the tickets they paid for as well as on StubHub’s warranty,” Blake Hunter Yagman, the attorney representing the two, said in a statement. “Instead of rewarding their business, StubHub sold them World Cup tickets that they either could not provide or on speculation, only to be stranded, in many cases, at the stadium gates without any recourse.”
According to StubHub’s website, its Fan Protect Guarantee states the platform will deliver valid tickets or refund in the event of a ticket issue, and that it will “go out of our way to find replacement tickets” of a comparable value. The lawsuit alleges the replacement tickets many fans were given by StubHub were worse than their original tickets.
FIFA, the World Cup organizer, states in its terms and conditions that the FIFA Marketplace, its own ticket-selling platform, is the only authorized platform for World Cup tickets, and that only tickets purchased through it are guaranteed by FIFA to be valid.
Despite the risk of purchasing through a third-party platform such as StubHub, many fans opted to do so to avoid the 30% FIFA resale tax, believing that the Fan Protect Guarantee would safeguard their order.
Since World Cup tickets began selling on FIFA Marketplace last September, fans have expressed disappointment in the expensive price tag. FIFA utilized a dynamic pricing system for the sale, and as sales phases progressed leading up to the games, the cost of tickets increased tremendously. In March, the extreme cost of tickets prompted 69 members of Congress to write a letter to FIFA urging them to lower their prices.
Tickets for the upcoming Friday match between Spain and Belgium in Los Angeles are selling on StubHub for over $1,300.
StubHub said in various statements to the news and in legal proceedings that ticket cancellations were a result of transfer problems and issues with FIFA’s ticketing infrastructure.
StubHub did not respond to requests for comment.
A FIFA spokesperson responded to this accusation in a statement, saying, “FIFA has no visibility over, or control of, secondary market ticket transactions carried out on third-party platforms. The transactions facilitated on these platforms occur entirely independently of FIFA’s official ticketing platform. With reference to the reliability of the services available to fans on FIFA’s official ticket platform, FIFA rejects any suggestion that the functional issues being experienced by users of third-party platforms with respect to FIFA World Cup 2026 tickets are the result of FIFA’s ticketing infrastructure.”
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