US President Donald Trump this weekend said he has authorised the doubling of tariffs on steel and aluminium from Turkey, citing poor relations between the two countries.
In a tweet posted on Friday (10 August), Trump said tariffs would jump from 10% to 20% in the case of aluminium, as well as from 25% to 50% in the case of steel, noting the rapid depreciation of the Turkish lira against what he called a “very strong” US dollar.
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I have just authorized a doubling of Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum with respect to Turkey as their currency, the Turkish Lira, slides rapidly downward against our very strong Dollar! Aluminum will now be 20% and Steel 50%. Our relations with Turkey are not good at this time!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 10, 2018
There has, however, been no official statement on whether the higher tariffs will actually enter into force.
Earlier this month, the Office of the US Trade Representative announced a review of the eligibility of Turkey to participate in the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) programme based on concerns related to its compliance with the GSP market access criterion.
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By GlobalDataThe review is in response to Turkey’s imposition of additional tariffs on US$1.78bn worth of US imports, which came in retaliation for the United States’ additional tariffs on imports of steel and aluminium products.
Last week, the US finalised its list of US$16bn worth of Chinese products which will be subject to a 25% additional tariff from 23 August.
Turkey has already challenged the tariffs imposed in response to President Trump’s actions on trade in aluminium and steel – and the fear, of course, is that as the situation between the two countries worsens, Turkey could retaliate by hiking duties on imports of US cotton.
Clothing is Turkey’s second-most successful export product – last year representing 9.4% of the country’s total exports. Exports of knitwear amounted to US$8.8bn, while exports of woven clothing reached US$6.0bn.
To meet demand, Turkey has raised its own production of raw materials like cotton to around 4m bales a year. Nevertheless, it still imports 3.6m bales per year, and is the third-largest importer of US cotton after China and Vietnam.
