The Commerce Department recommended the administration slap tariffs on steel and aluminum imported to the U.S. after a lengthy investigation into the products’ impact on national security.

The 10-month investigation determined that the quantities and circumstance of steel and aluminum imports “threaten to impair the national security.”

“I am glad that we were able to provide this analysis and these recommendations to the President,” said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. “I look forward to his decision on any potential course of action.”

The report found that U.S. reliance on foreign-produced steel and aluminum, which is often government subsidized, could compromise national security because those products have crucial military uses.

The conservative group FreedomWorks blasted the recommendation, calling it a hidden tax on U.S. consumers.

“The consumers pay tariffs and other taxes. Why are we trying to wipe away all the benefits of December’s fundamental tax reform?” said FreedomWorks President Adam Brandon. “In addition, tariffs ignited the Great Depression. Other countries will retaliate, killing the very exports and American jobs this administration seeks to promote.”

It wasn’t the first time critics accused Mr. Trump of tempting a trade war.

However, the Senate’s top Democrat urged Mr. Trump to quickly impose the tariffs and criticized him for not doing it sooner.

“We’ve been asking over a year for the Trump administration to crack down on China’s predatory practices on aluminum and steel,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer. “Now the president must quickly follow through with his promise to stand up for these workers and American manufacturing by adopting the full extent of these recommendations.”

Senate Democrats had put a hold on two Commerce Department nominees to prod action from the president. Mr. Schumer said they would now release the hold on Gil Kaplan for Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade.

The president ordered the investigations of steel and aluminum in April as he implemented get-tough trade policies that were a cornerstone of economic agenda.

The report called for a 24 percent tariff on steel exported from all countries and higher tariffs on exports from 12 targeted countries: Brazil, China, Costa Rica, Egypt, India, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam.

For aluminum, the report recommended a 7.7 percent tariff on exports from all countries and a 23.6 percent tariff on products from China, Hong Kong, Russia, Venezuela and Vietnam.

The president is required to make a decision on the steel recommendations by April 11 and on the aluminum recommendations by April 19.

Mr. Trump began reviewing the preliminary findings last month.

He signaled support for strong action on steel and aluminum this week when discussing trade with a group of bipartisan lawmakers.

“You see what’s happened with our steel and aluminum industries. They’re being decimated by dumping from many countries, in particular one, but many countries,” said Mr. Trump. “They’re dumping and destroying our industry, and destroying the families of workers, and we can’t let that happen.”

The investigations were carried out under a 1962 law authorizing the administration to assess domestic production of material needed for national defense, the domestic industry’s capacity to meet those requirements and the “close relation of national economic welfare to U.S. national security.”

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