(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said he would impose tariffs on a wide range of imports, including oil and metals, in the coming months, expanding his plans to enact sweeping trade levies well beyond those set to hit China, Canada and Mexico on Saturday.
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“We’ll be doing pharmaceuticals and drugs, medicines, etc, all forms of medicine and pharmaceuticals. And we’ll be doing very importantly steel and we’ll also be doing chips and things associated with chips,” Trump said Friday from the Oval Office where he was signing an executive order on deregulation.
“We’re going to put tariffs on chips. We’re going to put tariffs on oil and gas. That will happen very soon, I think about the 18th of February. And we’re going to put a lot of tariffs on steel,” he added.
Trump said there was nothing Canada, Mexico or China could do to forestall the more immediate levies, a response to what he says is a failure by those nations to prevent the flow of undocumented migrants and illegal drugs, like fentanyl, across US borders. And Trump told reporters that the US would “be doing something very substantial” with tariffs targeting the European Union.
Trump’s comments from the Oval Office reveal that even as he’s set to impose tariffs on the US’s biggest trade partners on Saturday, he’s beginning to look ahead to expanding them to other targets he’s frequently mentioned, including the EU and also the commodity and technology sectors that the US competes in.
Oil rose in late trading after Trump’s comments. West Texas Intermediate advanced to $73.33 at 4 p.m. in New York after earlier settling at $72.53. Copper futures in New York briefly erased some of the day’s losses.
Trump on Friday said the coming tariffs would stack on top of any existing levies. But he also indicated he would look to lower the rate on oil in the tariffs planned for Saturday. Trump has vowed a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico and a 10% tariff on China.
“I’m probably going to reduce the tariff a little bit on that. We think we’re going to bring it down to 10%,” Trump said.
Further tariffs targeting oil and gas could come on Feb. 18, he added.
Trump has previously pledged sectoral tariffs — on chips, pharmaceuticals, steel, aluminum and copper — as a bid to reshape supply chains and force manufacturers to shift production to the US, but had not specified when they would take effect. Friday’s comments indicate that the president aims to move quickly on those levies.