Electrolux to delay $250M Tennessee investment after Trump tariff announcement

Swedish appliance manufacturer Electrolux announced Friday that it will delay a $250 million investment to expand and modernize a plant in Springfield, Tenn., after President Trump’s announcement of new tariffs targeting aluminum and steel.

Reuters reports that the company is waiting to see the final details of Trump’s proposed tariffs — 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum imports — before making a decision whether to go forward with the plan to expand the company’s Tennessee location.

The company’s decision is particularly interesting because Electrolux already purchases all the steel it uses in its U.S. products domestically.

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“We are putting it on hold. We believe that tariffs could cause a pretty significant increase in the price of steel on the U.S. market,” company spokesman Daniel Frykholm said.

“[T]his is not the possibility of tariffs directly impacting our costs, but rather the impact it could have on the market and that it could damage the overall competitiveness of our operations in the U.S.,” he added.

Trump announced the tariffs Thursday, shocking many in Washington and prompting fears of a global trade war. The president addressed those fears directly in a tweet Friday morning, claiming that a trade war would be “easy” to win.

“When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win,” Trump tweeted.

Trump said Thursday that the final details of his tariff plan would be released next week, while two of the closest U.S. allies, Canada and the United Kingdom, have already expressed concerns about the announcement.