El Paso steel company owner says strong economy shielding him from steel tariffs fallout

The Trump Administration Friday announced tariffs on steel and aluminum imported from Turkey would be doubled.

Trump says via tweet the tariff on aluminum imports from Turkey will be increased to 20 percent and the tariff on steel imports from Turkey will be raised to 50 percent. “Our relations with Turkey are not good at this time,” the president also declared.

ABC-7 spoke with Roy Chacon, owner of Structural Steel Services, a local steel fabrication company in Far East El Paso. Chacon acknowledged the tariffs are affecting the prices of steel. “We’ve been directly hit with it and pretty much everything has gone up about twenty-five percent,” Chacon said in regards to prices.

Despite the increases in the price of steel, Chacon said his business is surviving thanks to the booming economy. “Right now, people have money, people are working or expanding. There’s a lot of construction going on, so that’s what’s helping,” he said. “If it wasn’t for that, it would have a great impact on us.”

Chacon said companies like Structural Steel Services negotiate contracts months before they start ordering supplies. When tariffs are raised, the price increase goes into affect the next day, making negotiating a fair price for a project difficult.

“Where it affects us is [with] the jobs we’ve already committed to, under contract for. If we get hit with tariffs, I have to eat the [cost],” Chacon said.

Chacon said he believes the tariffs could affect his business in the long run.

“It’s going to hit us all. So there’s going to have to come a time [the countries] can sit down together and you got to treat each other fairly because we do need import,” he said.

The Trump Administration has instituted steel tariffs on Canada, Mexico, Turkey and Brazil, as well as several other countries.