Donald Trump’s pet construction project is getting even more controversial.
Trump, who campaigned on the notion of “America First,” who enacted tariffs against foreign trading partners, is using tens of millions of dollars’ worth of foreign steel in his precious White House ballroom.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the world’s second-largest steelmaker, Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal, has donated steel for the ballroom, for which the 123-year-old East Wing has already been demolished, prompting its own lawsuit.
The steel was produced in Europe, two people familiar with the arrangement told the paper.
Trump appeared to hint at the donation last October when he valued it at $37 million, but did not name the source, only saying it was a “great steel company.”
“He said, ‘Sir, I’d like to donate the steel for your ballroom,’” Trump told donors then. “I said: ‘Whoa, that’s nice.’ And I found out — ‘How much is the steel?’ I called the contractor. ‘Sir, it’s down for $37 million.’ I said, ‘This is a nice donation, right?’”
That steel, Trump said, was “great steel as opposed to garbage steel, because they dump a lot of garbage around. You know, steel is like everything else, including human beings. Steel could be high quality, and it can be low quality. He wants to make sure it’s high quality.”
The Times notes that two days later, the White House altered its tariff policy in a way that could benefit ArcelorMittal by halving tariffs on automotive steel exports from its plant in Canada.
An anonymous White House official told the publication that any connection was “tenuous.”
Still, questions will persist, especially since ArcelorMittal’s chairman, Lakshmi Mittal, thanked Trump in person in 2020 for having “saved the steel industry in the United States.”
When reached for comment, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told the Times that Trump was “making the White House beautiful and giving it the glory it deserves at no cost to the taxpayer—something everyone should celebrate.”
He added: “Only people with a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome would find a problem with that.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast, nor did ArcelorMittal.
The ballroom, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said last October, was Trump’s “main priority.” He will reportedly be naming the 90,000-square foot structure after himself.
The White has made public the identities of some donors, while others remain unknown. The cost of the project is currently pegged at $400 million, having first been estimated at $200 million.
Trump has spent his second administration with a particular focus on steel. Last week, Trump tweaked his existing tariffs on steel imports in what the White House called “bolstering domestic manufacturing.”
Last June, Trump imposed a 50 percent tariff on imported steel, as well as aluminum, to try to prevent foreign metals from entering the U.S. market.
