The Trump administration reintroduced tariffs on steel and aluminum with the stated aim of protecting domestic production from unfair trade practices (White House, Recycling Today). The US capacity utilization rate is the percentage of productive capacity being used in the economy (Investopedia - Capacity Utilization Rate). The question will be suspended on 31 December 2025 if still open and the outcome determined using data as first reported by the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database, expected in January 2026 (FRED, hover your cursor over the chart for data). The data for a month as first reported will count, and subsequent revisions to past months are immaterial. As of the launch of this question, the capacity utilization rate was last above 74% in September 2023, when it was 74.3144%.

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