US aluminium and steel tariffs to clutch away over 100,000 jobs across the industry: Alcoa

Alcoa, a global aluminium production entity with major smelters in Canada, Australia, and Iceland, among other locations, has expressed concerning statements that over 100,000 employment losses can be anticipated owing to the proposed implementation of US aluminium and steel tariffs of flat 25 per cent on all imports by the Donald Trump government.

Bill Oplinger, CEO of Alcoa, conveyed at the BMO Global Metals and Mining Conference in Florida that the tariff implementation could lead to a massive loss of about 20,000 employments in the US aluminium industry and a further 80,000 jobs across the value-chain sectors that support it.

"This is bad for the aluminium industry in the US. It's bad for American workers," said Oplinger, an engineer by educational qualification who became CEO in 2023, shared during a webcast.

Already, the US is in a deep production deficit, with aluminium smelters producing just 670,000 tonnes of the metal last year, compared with 3.7 million tonnes in 2000. The Pittsburgh-based business has cut its manufacturing in the United States in the recent past partly due to electricity expenses.

The CEO stated that tariffs alone would not be sufficient to encourage Alcoa to reopen some of its closed US facilities, despite requests from Trump officials to do so.

"It's very hard to make an investment decision, even on something like a restart, without knowing how long the tariffs will last," Oplinger enunciated. He also said he had lobbied Trump officials for an exemption on Canadian aluminium imports.

Alcoa would consider boosting US output if the country could enable a lower-priced power supply, which Alcoa's now Icelandic operations enjoyed, Oplinger said. Aluminium smelting consumes large amounts of electricity.

Simultaneously, Oplinger expressed his belief that if the conflict between Ukraine and Russia comes to an end, aluminium from Russia could begin to flow into Europe. He also mentioned that there are opportunities for consolidation in the global aluminium market, although he did not provide specific details on this matter.

Information source: Reuters