ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump's dream of a steel wall along the southern U.S. border is still a long way from reality and may never become one. If it were built, it would be a project of enormous scale and a boon to the American steel industry. President Trump is a fan of Big Steel, and his trade policies have benefited some of the largest steel producers. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: President Trump says one of the advantages of building his border wall would be its impact on U.S. companies that manufacture steel. Here he was Friday at the White House.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And here's the other good thing. I'll have it done by the United States Steel Corporation, by companies in our country that are now powerful, great companies again. And they've become powerful over the last two years because of me and because of our trade policies.
ZARROLI: Trump has spoken for years about the importance of a strong domestic steel industry. He has said that without one, you don't have a country. He has talked about unfair trade practices by other steel-producing countries.
Dan Ikenson, director of trade policy studies at the Cato Institute, says Trump often goes to bat for the American steel industry.
DAN IKENSON: His administration is loaded with former steel executives and former steel trade attorneys. And that was a priority of his to impose duties on steel to help them be able to raise the prices and produce more.
ZARROLI: Trump has sometimes claimed that as a result of his trade policies, seven new steel mills are being built in the United States. That's not true, but there is at least one new plant being built, and some others are being upgraded.
There is little question that because of the tariffs on steel imports that Trump imposed last year, Big Steel companies like Nucor and U.S. Steel have seen their profits rise. Scott Paul heads the Alliance for American Manufacturing.
SCOTT PAUL: No matter which metric you look at, the steel industry is unquestionably doing better than it has been for the past couple of years.
ZARROLI: Because of the tariffs, imported steel is more expensive, and domestic suppliers no longer face much pressure to keep their prices low. But higher prices have also hurt a lot of manufacturers of numerous other products, including many in major industries like autos and housing.
Again, Dan Ikenson.
IKENSON: The problem, of course, is that as you lend a hand to particular producers - producers of upstream products like steel - you raise the costs of production for steel-consuming industries and steel-consuming firms.
ZARROLI: Companies can ask for an exemption from the tariffs, but the Commerce Department has been slow to grant them. Meanwhile, prices continue to creep up.
Steel industry officials acknowledge that some manufacturers are being hurt by price increases, but they say the increases for most are insignificant. Here was U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt in an interview on Fox Business channel last month.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DAVID BURRITT: If you look at the total increase in that price, it's really not substantial. For an automobile, for example, the average cost of car - $30,000. The steel in that is around a thousand dollars. It's not a big number.
ZARROLI: But President Trump has repeatedly said that steel is at the heart of a robust American economy. It's a view that's not widely shared by economists. They say the benefits of tariffs to steel companies aren't worth the price being paid by other manufacturers. Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)