Genuino Christino, group chief financial officer at ArcelorMittal, said on Thursday April 30 that the company was “contributing steel to the White House Ballroom… Approximately 600 tonnes have been delivered to date.”
“We have a track record of both supplying strong, high-quality steels to US customers and donating steel to iconic buildings and projects around the world that showcase its strength and flexibility,” Christino said during the company’s first-quarter earnings conference call, citing steel used in the Freedom Tower (at One World Trade Center in New York City), which was also supplied by ArcelorMittal.
Media reports on April 9 said that steel for the White House ballroom was produced outside the US and donated by ArcelorMittal, at an estimated cost of $37 million.
When contacted by Fastmarkets, a White House spokesperson said on April 9: “Due to the top-secret and sensitive nature of various elements of the East Wing Modernization and Ballroom project, we do not discuss specific materials or where or how they are applied.”
Fastmarkets contacted ArcelorMittal’s headquarters in Europe at the time, but the company declined to comment.
Trump’s second term has been marked by measures to support the domestic steel industry.
The most significant came in March 2025, when a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminium imports went into effect under the umbrella of Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act. On June 4, the Trump administration doubled general US tariffs on steel, aluminium and their derivative products from 25% to 50%.
On August 15 last year, the US Department of Commerce expanded the list of goods subject to these 50% tariffs, adding 407 product categories of steel and aluminium derivative products, striking a second blow to imports of metals products.
Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal has a footprint across North America, including an electric-arc furnace plant in Calvert, Alabama, that produces 5.3 million short tons of flat steel annually, and flat-rolled producer ArcelorMittal Dofasco in Canada, which produces 4.5 million tons of steel every year, according to the company’s website.
ArcelorMittal posted first-quarter net earnings of $1.68 billion, up by 5.4% from $1.59 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025, primarily driven by improved performance in the North America sector, which includes the flat, long and tubular operations in the US, Canada and Mexico, as well as all Mexico mines.
The company’s North America sector saw crude steel production increase by 18.3% to 2.1 million tonnes in the first quarter, compared with 1.8 million tonnes in the preceding quarter, “primarily driven by the successful restart of the Mexico long products blast furnace following preventive maintenance.”
Sales increased by 8.3% to $3.3 billion in the North America sector, compared with $3.0 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025, reflecting higher steel shipments and higher average steel selling prices.
Margie Palmer in Sarasota, Florida and Julia Bolotova in Brussels contributed to this report.
Author: Rijuta Dey
