Reports: Algoma Steel halts US shipments, plans layoffs in wake of tariff war

The move came after the start of the Trump Tariff Trade War on Tuesday and the unpredictable trade environment it has created for North American businesses.

“Steel companies are not designed to act in real time based on an interview that somebody just gave on MSNBC,” Garcia commented to the Financial Post.

Adding more fuel to this week’s tariff fire, the 25% Section 232 tariff on Canadian steel is scheduled to be reinstated next week, on Wednesday, March 12. Combined with the universal tariff, this could push the US tariff rate on Canadian steel up to 50%. (Note that as of this writing, Canada received another 30-day reprieve on the 25% tariffs.)

That would be a huge issue for Algoma. According to the article, the Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario-based flat-rolled steelmaker ships 50-60% of its steel to US customers.

“That almost immediately makes half of our orders underwater,” Garcia told the newspaper, “and so that would be a very serious threat to the company.”

He said even just the 25% tariff is making Algoma “rethink the structure of our business and the customers that we are best positioned to serve.”

Layoffs

With so much business uncertainty, Algoma issued temporary layoff notices to 20 supervisors and other salaried employees last week, according to local newspaper SooToday.

The employees are members of United Steelworkers Local 2724.

William Slater, president of Local 2724, told SooToday that the layoffs are related to last week’s unplanned blast furnace outage and tariff-related business uncertainty.

As of press time, neither Algoma nor the union had responded to SMU’s requests for comment on this story.

SMU will host Algoma Steel CEO Michael Garcia on our April 9 Community Chat. Please join us for a timely discussion and Q&A. You can register here.