Sec 232 Trump Tariff on Tinplate Raises Cost for Canned Products

The cost to put food in cans remains high because manufacturers must still import steel from overseas. U.S. Steel plans to reopen a tin-plate factory.

· President Donald Trump’s 50% steel tariffs are creating major challenges for the US canned food industry, particularly for tin plate steel used in cans.

· Despite the tariffs being designed to boost domestic steel production, US can makers say they still depend heavily on imported tin plate because domestic production remains limited.

· Over 80% of the tin plate used in the United States last year was imported, according to industry estimates.

· Tin plate is a specialized steel product used for food cans and is produced in much smaller quantities than other steel products, making it less profitable for steelmakers.

· The tariffs were imposed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act on national security grounds, giving them stronger legal protection than some other Trump tariffs struck down by courts.

· Rising tin plate costs have pushed up canned food prices:

o canned fruits and vegetables were 5.7% more expensive in March than a year earlier,

o compared with a 2% increase for overall food-at-home prices.

· Can manufacturers say the higher costs particularly hurt lower-income households that rely on canned staples like beans and corn.

· U.S. Steel recently announced plans to restart tin plate production at its Gary, Indiana facility next year, suggesting tariffs may be encouraging investment.

· However, analysts believe the US will still need to import more than two-thirds of its tin plate even after the new production begins.

· Ohio Coatings, one of the few remaining US tin plate producers, imports about three-fourths of the blackplate steel it uses and must pay tariffs on those imports.

· Ohio Coatings supports the tariffs in principle because they protect US steelmakers from heavily subsidized foreign competition, especially from China.

· At the same time, the company says the tariffs have squeezed profits and increased costs for customers.

· Ohio Coatings has asked the Trump administration for temporary tariff waivers on imported blackplate to allow time for US production capacity to expand.

· A decade ago, US companies produced more than 60% of America’s packaging steel supply; last year domestic production fell below 20%.

· Several US steelmakers previously shut down tin plate lines because imports were cheaper and other steel products offered better profit margins.

· Cleveland-Cliffs exited tin plate production after losing an anti-dumping case involving imports from countries including Canada, Germany and South Korea.

· U.S. Steel has now launched its own anti-dumping complaint against imports from China, Taiwan and Turkey.

· Analysts question whether some pricing decisions are driven by economics or political pressure, especially after the US government gained a “golden share” in U.S. Steel during its deal with Nippon Steel.

· Imports of foreign canned food products are also increasing because imported food-filled cans are exempt from the steel tariffs.

· The Can Manufacturers Institute urged the administration to extend tariffs to imported canned foods, warning of a surge in foreign competition.

· Critics argue that imposing tariffs on imported canned food would further worsen food affordability problems for American consumers.

[ABS News Service/12.05.2026]

The simple tin can is proving to be one of the toughest tests for President Trump’s tariffs.

Just over a year ago, Mr. Trump imposed high tariffs on steel to try to stifle imports of the metal and bolster domestic production.

But imports of the kind of steel used to make cans surged in 2025, and American can makers say they will remain heavily dependent on foreign supplies — now made more expensive by the tariffs — for a long time.

“We have to import all this tin plate,” said Scott Breen, the president of the Can Manufacturers Institute, referring to the thinly rolled steel that is coated with tin and used to make cans. “There’s not any more being produced here than there was before.” The institute is a trade group representing some of the largest can makers in the United States.

Unlike some of Mr. Trump’s other tariffs, which have been overturned by courts, the steel levies have strong legal standing, according to scholars, which means they are unlikely to go away anytime soon.

They were imposed under a national security provision called Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act — and, at 50 percent, are higher than many of Mr. Trump’s other import taxes.

A can makes up about a third of the wholesale price of canned fruits or vegetables. And as Mr. Trump’s tariffs pushed up the cost of tin plate, canned food prices have risen, burdening households that rely on such staples as corn and beans.

In March, canned fruits and vegetables cost 5.7 percent more than they did a year earlier, compared with a 2 percent increase for all food consumed at home, according to government data.

Over 80 percent of the tin plate used in the United States last year was imported, according to Harbor Intelligence, a metals markets analysis firm. Tin plate is produced in much lower volumes than the steel used to make cars and buildings, making it a less attractive business for large steel companies.

Still, U.S. Steel, the biggest U.S. producer of tin plate, recently announced that it was planning to make more, by restarting production next year at a facility in Gary, Ind. — a potential sign that Mr. Trump’s tariffs are spurring investment.

A spokesperson for the Commerce Department, the agency behind the steel tariffs, said that tin plate mills closed under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and that Mr. Trump’s policies were improving the business environment for tin plate makers, pointing to U.S. Steel’s plans for its Gary plant.

But even with the new supply from U.S. Steel, American can makers are likely to import over two-thirds of their tin plate in the coming years, steel executives and analysts said.

The current challenges affecting the tin plate market are not lost on Dave Luptak, the chief executive of Ohio Coatings. His company buys steel rolled as thin as a business card and coats it with tin at its factory in Yorkville, Ohio.

Workers at the facility, most of whom are in the United Steelworkers union, make the tin plate by running the thin steel, known as blackplate, through a line that coats it with tin via a chemical-electrical process. Last year, the factory produced 162,000 tons of tin plate for its can making customers.

Mr. Luptak said he supported Mr. Trump’s tariffs because they protected the American steel industry from foreign factories, particularly in China, where production is heavily subsidized. But Ohio Coatings imports around three-fourths of its blackplate, on which it must pay tariffs.

Mr. Luptak said the imposition of the tariffs did not mean the company was paying 50 percent more for the foreign blackplate. That’s because, he said, Ohio Coatings’ suppliers had cut their price to offset some of the tariff. He also said the company had raised what it charged its customers by a “single-digit” percentage last year. Still, Mr. Luptak said that Ohio Coatings had absorbed some of the cost of the tariff and that its profits had taken a hit.

“Our margins are challenged,” he said.

Ohio Coatings has asked the Trump administration to consider temporarily waiving the tariffs on blackplate. This, Mr. Luptak explained, would give his company and other American steel makers time to set up new lines to make tin-plate steel and reduce the United States’ reliance on imports.

A decade ago, American producers made over 60 percent of the tin plate, blackplate and another type of packaging steel used in the United States, according to Harbor Intelligence. But last year they produced less than 20 percent. In recent years, American steel companies shut down tin plate lines. They said they couldn’t compete with imports, and other types of steel production had better margins. That left Ohio Coatings and U.S. Steel as the only producers of tin plate. U.S. Steel also makes blackplate, some of which it sells to Ohio Coatings.

U.S. Steel didn’t say how much tin plate — the finished product — it might produce after restarting production at its Gary factory. “It will depend on a number of factors,” said Amanda Malkowski, a spokeswoman for U.S. Steel.

Last year, as part of a deal to sell U.S. Steel to Japan’s Nippon Steel, the U.S. government obtained a “golden share” in the American steel producer that gives it significant influence over the company. Because of the golden share, some analysts said, it is possible that the Trump administration leaned on U.S. Steel to restart tin plate production at Gary.

“It’s kind of hard to know what’s economics and what’s politics there,” said Scott Lincicome, a vice president at the Cato Institute, a research organization that favors free markets and opposes many tariffs.

Ms. Malkowski said reopening the factory “was a business decision.”

Cleveland-Cliffs, an American steel company, decided to stop producing tin plate after it lost an “anti-dumping” case at the International Trade Commission in 2024. The company had sought high duties on tin plate imported from Canada, China, Germany and South Korea.

Despite Cleveland-Cliffs’ defeat, U.S. Steel said last month that it was bringing its own case to the trade commission, alleging tin-plate dumping of products from China, Taiwan and Turkey. In its petition, U.S. Steel said those imports were taking sales from domestic producers “by offering aggressively low prices.”

But the petition does not show imports getting significantly cheaper.

In the petition, U.S. Steel said imported Turkish tin-mill products on average cost $1,057 a ton last year, roughly the same as $1,083 a ton in 2023. But while U.S. Steel said the Turkish products cost 8 percent less than the American ones in 2023, it said they were 75 percent cheaper last year.

In explaining how the discount could have grown so much in two years, a person familiar with the petition said U.S. Steel had increased its tin-mill prices to what it believed was a fairer level.

As tariffs push up the cost of American canned goods, imports of foreign canned goods are rising. That’s in part because they benefit from a loophole that puts American canned products at a disadvantage: Imported foreign cans are exempt from the steel tariffs when they contain food.

The Can Manufacturers Institute, the trade group, called for the steel tariffs to be imposed on imported food-filled cans, but the Trump administration did not do so when it revamped the steel tariffs last month. In a news release, the trade group said the administration’s failure to act would open “the floodgates to more foreign-filled cans on grocery store shelves.”

Mr. Lincicome said it would be “lunacy” to put tariffs on food when affordability was a concern of many voters. And he said he was not surprised that imports of foreign canned goods were rising.

“When you raise the cost of making stuff in the United States, which in this case is making canned foods, you make production here less competitive globally,” Mr. Lincicome said.