Memo to Howard Lutnick and his Commerce Department: When you find yourself saying that milk is made of metal, it’s a sign that you’ve gone wrong somewhere. That’s essentially what the department has done by applying steel and aluminum tariffs to canned condensed milk.
This bizarre tariff scheme comes from a mid-August Federal Register notice announcing that goods in 407 different product categories “will be considered as steel or aluminum derivative products.” Anyone buying these goods from abroad must pay a 50% tariff on the metal they contain.
This is the latest chapter in the long saga of steel and aluminum tariffs. In 2018 the first Trump administration put a 25% tariff on most steel and a 10% tariff on most aluminum. The tariffs failed to reshore American manufacturing: According to U.S. Geological Survey data, the U.S. makes less aluminum and less steel than in 2017. The tariff onslaught has continued in the second Trump term. This March, President Trump added more steel and aluminum products to the list, reinstated the 25% steel tariff, and raised the aluminum tariff to 25%. In June he raised the rates to 50%, and in July he added copper.
