Alcoa anticipating 35% ‘stacked tariff’ rate on Canadian aluminum if tariffs happen: CEO

Author Fast Webs<.>, <.>

* Company expects Midwest Premium could reach $0.50-$0.55
* Tariffs could result in over 80,000 US jobs being lost: CEO

Alcoa anticipates US imports of Canadian aluminum to be tariffed at 35% if US President Donald Trump follows through on both of his promises to levy 25% tariffs on all US aluminum imports and 10% tariffs on Canadian critical minerals, William Oplinger, the company’s CEO, said Feb. 25 at the BMO 2025 Global Metals, Mining & Critical Minerals Conference.
Trump’s order to implement 10% tariffs on imports of Canadian critical minerals is set to take effect on March 4. The US President also ordered 25% tariffs on all US imports of steel and aluminum, which is set to start on March 12. The North American aluminum industry is tightly woven, and most of its aluminum producers are hoping for tariff exemptions for Canada.
It’s yet to be determined whether [the tariffs] actually come into place. But our current view is that we will have a stacked tariff system for metal coming from Canada into the U.S, said Oplinger. Our view is that currently, those 2 tariffs would stack for a 35% net tariff coming from Canada.
There has been confusion across the aluminum industry on whether aluminum would fall under the critical minerals tariff rate, but Oplinger said Alcoa expects this to be the case.
Alcoa produces roughly 900,000 mt of aluminum from its Canadian assets and 300,000 mt within the US. About 700,000 mt of Canadian production is shipped to the US, according to Oplinger.
Oplinger had previously said that US tariffs on Canadian aluminum would lead Alcoa to redirect Canadian supply to European markets, and he repeated these remarks in today’s conference.
With a 35% stack tariff, we think the Midwest premium could go as high as $0.50 or $0.55, he added.
The Platts spot 99.7% P1020 US Aluminum Transaction Premium was assessed at 40.85 cents/lb plus LME cash, delivered Midwest, net-30-day payment terms, Feb. 24, unchanged from the previous assessment.
This assessment, also known as the Midwest Premium, has risen 63.73% since the start of February and is currently sitting at an all-time high due to pre-tariff buying.
We view that it’s negative for the aluminum industry. I don’t have updated numbers for a 35% tariff, but we have a view that 25% tariffs will destroy about 20,000 direct US aluminum industry jobs and could result in 80,000 indirect jobs being eliminated in the US, said Oplinger.
In his first term, Trump created tariff exemptions for Canadian and Mexican aluminum imports as part of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement signed in 2018. Stakeholders across the North American aluminum sector have urged his administration to reinstate these exemptions.
We’re advocating with the administration to, at a minimum, get a Canadian exemption, which will allow 2/3 of that metal that gets consumed in the US to continue to come across the border without a tariff, said Oplinger.