🚨President Donald Trump is taking on the world — in what the Wall Street Journal editorial board dubbed the “dumbest trade war in history.” They’re probably right.

Even though Trump’s tariffs on Canada and Mexico are on “hold” pending the outcome of negotiations, he is moving forward with a new “reciprocal tariff” scheme covering most of the world and issued a 25 percent levy on all steel and aluminum imports into the U.S. And, folks are mad. This is the latest on Trump’s trade war with literally everybody:

• Manufacturers in all industries are bracing for higher prices and expenses related to derivative product development and manufacturing. Trump literally slapped 25 percent tariffs — astronomically high prices — on steel and aluminum with no exceptions, exclusions, or caveats. Prices are going to climb for literally anything that has steel or aluminum — especially craft beer brewers.

• For example, CNN reports that craft brewers “could get crushed” because of the new levy on aluminum. Aluminum is the key material in (shock) aluminum cans.

• “[A]luminum, specifically cans, has become incredibly important to us and every other small, independently owned craft brewer in the nation. Aluminum cans are a massive part of our business,” said Caleb Hiliadis, head brewer of Massachusetts-based Amherst Brewing Company, told CNN business reporter Alicia Wallace.

• Higher tariffs could lead more manufacturers to use domestic steel, raising prices and boosting production. Despite the intent, it is highly unlikely that tariffs on steel and aluminum will bolster these industries to periods before rapid globalization.

• One expert told Supply Chain Dive, “The idea that we’re ever going to be anywhere near the 300,000 manufacturing steel jobs that we had at one point is just never going to happen.” In the same news report, it was noted the number of steelworkers and metal workers fell from 200,000 in 1988 to 83,600 in FY 2023.

• In addition, Trump has come to fight literally the rest of the world with his order for so-called reciprocal tariffs. Trump announced a plan to raise U.S. tariffs to match other countries’ import taxes, risking economic tensions with both allies and rivals to reduce trade imbalances. This is supposedly in the spirit of the Reciprocal Tariffs Act passed to equalize trade in Central and South America.

• “I’ve decided for purposes of fairness that I will charge a reciprocal tariff,” Trump said, dismissing the facts that modern tariff policy and positioning to ultra-far-right protectionism. Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan, an economics professor at Brown University, observed last week, “[I] believe that American consumers will pay the price, and they are also going to hurt American businesses. […] In terms of economics, imposing tariffs on the goods the United States is buying is not going to benefit anybody in the United States unless, at the same time, the country enacts some sort of industrial policy to promote manufacturing in America.”

Bottom line: We will leave you with Arnaud Leparmentier, New York correspondent for the French-language Le Monde: “[E]ven if the duties have been temporarily suspended, the saga fundamentally changes the understanding of what Trump's economic term will be like, made up of chaos and the president’s persistent obsessions.”

CONTEXT: Professor Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan: “A global economist’s take on tariffs: ‘American consumers will get hurt’”

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📈BY THE NUMBERS…📈

⛽ Diesel: $3.665 / gal (⬆️from $3.660 last week) - EIA

✈️ Air Cargo Index (Dec. ‘24): 197.7 (⬆️from 196.0 in Nov. ‘24) - FRED

🚢 Global Container Index: $3,435.60 on Feb. 13, 2025 - Freightos

📰OTHER NEWS IN FREIGHT📰

🚢The U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) was found to be short on staff: The Government Accountability Office (GAO) just released a report implicating MARAD in workforce shortages and its inability to carry out its mission as the US Department of Transportation’s top regulator of the American waterborne transportation industry. As of September 2024, MARAD had a 12.3 percent vacancy rate—116 out of 941 vacancies.

🪜Panama Canal reports transit to bounce back in first four months of FY 2025: After last year’s drought restrictions, Panama Canal transits rose 25% in early FY 2025. For the canal authority, fiscal years begin in October of the year before — for fiscal year 2025, it started in October 2024. More at Seatrade Maritime News…

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