Rising fastener costs are “rippling through manufacturing supply chains,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

President Donald Trump’s 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum imports include screws, nails, bolts and other fasteners.

“The tariffs have set off a hunt to find domestic supplies of some of manufacturing’s smallest components,” write Bob Tita and Ryan Felton for the Journal.

Fasteners are part of $178 billion of steel and aluminum products imported by the U.S. in 2024 that are now subject to a 25% tariff — more than triple the import products affected by the Trump’s original tariffs on steel and aluminum in 2018.

Fastener manufacturers said the U.S. lacks capacity to produce the volume of steel wire or screws and other fasteners needed to displace imports.

“The production capacity we need doesn’t exist here in the U.S.,” Semblex president Gene Simpson told the Journal. “It’s a select group of suppliers.”

At the same time, companies that use screws and other metal parts covered by tariffs say their customers won’t tolerate price increases.

The Industrial Fasteners Institute has urged the Trump Administration to include fasteners (found in Chapters 73, 74 and 83 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS)) in its forthcoming exemption list of steel derivative products.

“As long as the 232 tariffs remain in place, then downstream products like fasteners needed to be included to offset the negative impacts being felt across the North American fastener industry,” IFI stated.