Negative reactions to the Trump administration's plan to place tariffs on imported steel and aluminum are overblown and misguided, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Friday morning.
Ross told Fox Business host Stuart Varney that foreign companies have been selling steel at prices below the normal price, known as dumping. He used the example of the Keystone Pipeline project, which could increase in price by $300 million because of the tariffs.
"That's a multi-billion-dollar project, and what they did, they bought a lot of their steel from India prior to the president putting in the Buy America, Build America thing. So what they were doing was profiteering off dump steel," Ross said. "That's something we're not going to tolerate because it costs American jobs. Everybody talks about the price, but what about the jobs?"
Ross was also asked about Electrolux, a Swedish company that is putting a planned $250 million investment in Tennessee on hold because of the tariffs.
"Anytime that you get rid of dumped product, there will be a price increase. The question is, what does it amount to?" Ross said. "Take a car. There's about one ton of steel in a car. And if that goes up 25 percent from a $700 base, that's under a couple of hundred dollars. That's around five-tenths of one percent of the price of a car. It's no big deal. People are exaggerating it considerably."
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