On August 10, 2018, President Trump announced on Twitter that the United States would double Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs on Turkey, referencing the drop of the Turkish lira as his reason for hiking the tariffs. Later that day, the White House issued a presidential proclamation directing that a 50 percent ad valorem tariff be imposed on steel articles imported from Turkey. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross released a statement the same day saying that “since the imposition of the Section 232 tariff in March, exports to the United States have declined and domestic capacity utilization has increased, but not to levels sufficient to remove the threat to national security. Doubling the tariff on imports of steel from Turkey will further reduce these imports that the Department found threaten to impair national security as defined in Section 232.” The increased tariff rate went into effect on August 13, 2018.

In response, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan increased tariffs on several U.S.-origin products with a presidential decree published in the Turkish government’s Official Gazette on August 15, 2018. Turkey increased tariffs on products such as rice, tobacco, vehicles, alcohol, coal and cosmetics. With Erdoğan’s decree, tariffs on passenger cars, alcoholic drinks and leaf tobacco have been doubled, resulting in tariffs of 120 percent, 140 percent and 60 percent respectively. Other U.S. products now facing tariffs include nuts, cosmetics, plastics and paper. Turkey’s Vice President Fuat Oktay stated that the tariffs were “within the framework of the principle of reciprocity in retaliation for the conscious economic attacks by the United States.” These Turkish tariffs went into effect on August 15, 2018.