U.S., Canadian Governments Each Adjust Metals Tariffs

The U.S. and Canadian governments each made major announcements last week regarding their respective tariffs on industrial metals. On June 3, Canadian Minister of Finance and National Revenue François-Philippe Champagne announced his government plans to extend key steel and aluminum tariff measures for one year. More specifically, subject to approval by the Governor in Council, Canada will extend its steel tariff-rate quotas (TRQ) regime on imports from non-United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) partners and its existing horizontal tariff relief for eligible steel and aluminum products from the United States and for eligible steel products subject to derivative tariffs.

These measures will now expire in June 2027.

Read Minister Champagne’s full announcement at this link.

Two days earlier, on June 1, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a presidential proclamation “adjusting certain metals tariffs to more effectively address national security threats, spur investment in American agriculture, housing, and manufacturing, and facilitate U.S. production of related products.” The proclamation:

• Encourages foreign companies to use more U.S. steel and aluminum by allowing them to qualify for a 10 percent duty rate if their capital equipment includes at least 85 percent U.S. melted and poured or smelted and cast steel or aluminum by weight. (That 85 percent level is down from 95 percent.)
• Adjusts the tariffs on agricultural equipment, like combines and harvesters, as well as certain other equipment, from 25 percent to 15 percent.
• Expands the existing category of industrial equipment subject to a 15 percent tariff to include mobile industrial equipment, like bulldozers and forklifts, when imported from countries with which the United States has a trade agreement and that, under those agreements, are entitled to such treatment.

The proclamation also explained aluminum lithographic plates and steel racks are subject to the 25 percent tariffs. The president wrote that subjecting those products to 25 percent levies “will ensure that the tariffs on metal products are not circumvented.”

The U.S. government’s changes went into Monday, June 8, but are temporary, lasting only until Dec. 31, 2027. Read more about them here, here, and here.

As a reminder, President Trump imposed 25 percent tariffs on aluminum and steel derivative products on April 2, 2026, citing Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which gives the president the authority to impose tariffs due to national security concerns.

President Trump said he decided to issue the June 1 proclamation after U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick found evidence the higher tariffs “have affected and are affecting” domestic industries that use these materials. “These products also serve an important role in productive domestic economic activity,” the proclamation states. “For example, American farmers use agricultural equipment to produce the food upon which our nation relies; construction equipment is essential for the continued reindustrialization of our nation; and material-handling equipment enables industrial logistics and factory operations.”