On Fox, Trump adviser Peter Navarro baselessly claims new tariffs “will bring the golden age for steel and aluminum back”

Trump’s first term steel tariffs cost 75x more jobs than they supported, and employment in the industry still fell overall

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published

In an op-ed for Fox Business and on Fox News’ The Faulkner Focus, Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro proclaimed that the president’s newly announced 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports, with no exceptions, will lead to a “golden age” of employment in the steel and aluminum production industries.

From the February 11, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Faulkner Focus

HARRIS FAULKNER (HOST): Also right now, a 25% tariff on all foreign steel and aluminum coming into the United States. No exceptions, no exemptions. That’s from President Trump. And he says the tariffs aim to boost our economy by encouraging domestic steel and aluminum production.

…

FAULKNER: In a new op-ed for Fox, White House senior counselor for trade and manufacturing Peter Navarro writes, “It's a new golden age for American steel and aluminum.” Wonder what he means? Peter Navarro joins me now. So, how golden will it be on these two issues, steel and aluminum?

PETER NAVARRO (TRUMP TRADE ADVISER): It’s going to be so golden, Harris, we'll have to call it a platinum age. The importance of steel and aluminum to our national defense and our economic security cannot be underestimated. It is critical. In the first term, Donald Trump imposed these tariffs on steel and aluminum. We had over $15 billion from the steel industry alone. The aluminum industry boomed. And what has happened over the last four years under Joe Biden's sleepy watch is an enormous amount of country exceptions that have allowed a flood of aluminum and steel into our country. The steel industry is on its knees now, the capacity utilization went way down. Aluminum is flat on its back.

And the president yesterday signed two proclamations that will bring the golden age for steel and aluminum back. And what’s really interesting here, Harris, is it's not just China and Russia sticking our steel and aluminum markets. It’s all of our friends and allies who we gave special treatment to. And instead of abiding by the rules of that, they abused them. And Brazil floods us with steel slab. We got Japan on the high specialty end. Australia is just crushing, crushing — with the help of China — our aluminum sector. And the president says no more country exemptions, no more product exclusions, which we had over 300,000 of. And off we're going to run into a beautiful golden age. We expect a lot of new investment. And it goes.

Contrary to Navarro’s claim, the 25% tariff on steel imports that Trump instituted in his first term (which included various exemptions) raised the price of steel enough that it caused job losses in steel-dependent industries that far exceeded temporary job gains in steel production. University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers, citing research from EconoFact, showed how the roughly 1,000 jobs gained by the steel production industry were dwarfed by a loss of approximately 75,000 jobs in industries that consume steel.

The U.S. International Trade Commission found that Trump’s 2018 tariffs (including a smaller 10% tariff on aluminum) led to increased prices for both metals. And the first term tariffs led to only a temporary bump in employment for the steel and aluminum production industries, with fewer jobs in both industries in 2020 than in 2017 when the first Trump administration began.

A Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis graph showing little impact on steel and aluminum production jobs during the first Trump administration

Navarro’s complaint that industrial capacity utilization declined under Biden is undermined by data showing a similar decline under Trump after his 2018 tariffs.

In contrast to Navarro’s Fox appearance, on CNN he was confronted with the reality that Trump’s earlier tariffs did increase prices. After anchor Pamela Brown cited an analysis that Trump’s 2018 tariffs resulted in “average American household cost [of] $600 per year” and another analysis noting price increases on specific product categories, Navarro just said he doesn’t “believe” them.