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from the so-now-our-cars-and-buildings-will-all-cost-more dept.
US steel and aluminium imports face big tariffs, Trump says
President Donald Trump has said he will sign off on steep tariffs on steel and aluminium imports next week, hitting producers like Canada and China.
Flanked by US metals executives at the White House, he said a 25% tariff would be slapped on steel products, and a 10% tariff would be imposed on aluminium.
Mr Trump tweeted that the US was suffering from "unfair trade".
The US imports four times more steel than it exports, and is reliant on steel from more than 100 nations.
Related: U.S. Quintuples Taxes on Chinese Cold-Rolled Flat Steel
China to Cut Steel and Coal Production
Trump Administration Finalizes 300% Import Tariff on Bombardier Jets From Canada
US Government Puts Tariffs on Imported Solar Cells, Solar Modules, and Washing Machines
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 02 2018, @10:44PM (22 children)
The only reason to put up a tariff is if you can produce roughly the same product at roughly the same price point domestically. If you can't, all that happens when you put up tariffs is you end up starving domestic industries that relied on those imports.
There is a time and place for tariffs. Hitting an ally (Canada) is not one of them.
To me, this smells like Trump has no idea about the consequences of any of this and is attempting to use this as a type of soft nuke, an economic neutron bomb that destroys assets and leaves people standing (and hungry). I'm not even sure he's put that much thought into it, honestly. What a mess...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Virindi on Friday March 02 2018, @10:48PM (12 children)
Yes, tariffs on Canada make no sense at all.
As in my post above, the best reason for tariffs is to make up for the increased cost of complying with safety and environmental rules......but Canada has similar ones to us. So putting a tariff on Canada is just blind protectionism.
The tariff should only be on countries which employ slave labor, pollute like crazy, or have a government heavily paying off the industry.
I don't know if Canadian steel is subsidized, it may be. If so it would be fair to put a tariff on it, but much less than China since Canada does still have safety and environmental standards.
(Score: 4, Informative) by fritsd on Friday March 02 2018, @10:53PM (5 children)
<tinfoil_hat>
Maybe one of Trump's buddies, another "man of the people" [theguardian.com], asked him to shake the stock market up a bit.
</tinfoil_hat>
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Friday March 02 2018, @11:54PM (4 children)
Not a lot of tin there, really:
(Score: 4, Informative) by fyngyrz on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:11AM (3 children)
Also, this. [theguardian.com]
Purely a coincidence, I'm sure. [cough]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:54AM (2 children)
Oh no, there couldn't possibly be any insider trading going on. That's just quality paranoia. Right buzz? [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Saturday March 03 2018, @01:13AM (1 child)
https://youtu.be/SjbPi00k_ME [youtu.be]
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @02:21PM
Add into this that American credit card debt is going up and up.
Buying cheap foreign stuff and taking a loan out for it surely can’t help trade imbalances. Though the board of Walmart (among others) probably loves it while the charade lasts.
Be glad you have your social programs and good Medicare to help you in your broke old age.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Friday March 02 2018, @11:09PM (4 children)
If you do that, I'll start my own steel plant in Canada and undermine the US manufacturers with my cheap cheap prices.
All I need is a hangar where Chinese steel comes in one door, and one guy who stamps "Assembled in Canada" stickers before it reaches the opposite door.
I'm looking for Cirque Du Soleil acrobats, so they can do it without stopping the trucks or containers.
(Score: 2) by Virindi on Friday March 02 2018, @11:13PM (1 child)
One would think that countries which have costly regulations on industry, would see the benefit of cooperation in this regard.
Too bad letting people suffer on the other side of the world lines so many pockets.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by khallow on Saturday March 03 2018, @03:45AM
No honor among thieves. And suffering is relative. Those people would suffer anyway. This way they're getting paid more for their suffering.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 03 2018, @02:57AM (1 child)
I've seen almost that exact thing, in practice. Take a load of Wisconsin cheese to California, unload it onto a dock with a conveyor belt. Workers along that belt take the 5 pound blocks of cheese out of the boxes, then put them into new boxes. The new boxes assert the cheese to be genuine California cheese. Pallets of cheese were unloaded, broken down, and put on the processing line, repacked, then loaded onto trucks waiting on the other end of the line. Individual blocks of cheese may be inside of the repackaging facility for an hour or less. The average was almost certainly less than three hours.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @07:42AM
Yeah, we know, Runaway. Were you wearing an onion on your belt, as was the fashion at the time?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dw861 on Saturday March 03 2018, @03:20AM
To put a tariff on Canadian steel and aluminium is insane. Yes, Canada is the number one supplier of both aluminium and steel to the US.
Canada also buys a fantastic amount of American-produced steel, resulting in a $2 Billion surplus in steel trade for the USA.
Some of that "Canadian" aluminium is produced in Canada by the American company Alcoa.
There used to be a common North American market in these commodities, and a shared auto sector. Perhaps this is the beginning of the end for NAFTA after all.
http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/canada-to-fire-back-if-hit-with-u-s-steel-and-aluminum-tariffs [financialpost.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday March 02 2018, @10:58PM (4 children)
Number of jobs in steel and aluminium - under 300k in 1990, at about 130k now.
Number of jobs in manufacturing that uses steel and aluminium (and who will pay more on their input) - over 4M today, about the same level in 1990.
Source [bloomberg.com] citing U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Last time it happened (same source):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 03 2018, @01:07AM (3 children)
Fuckhuge construction uses rebar, I-beams and all other kinds of steel. Joe-shit the ragman who wants a new swimming pool or a new concrete pad uses rebar. Trump has an infrastructure bill coming.
Then our creditors had better shut their fat stinkin' mouths or else we'll blow them up.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday March 03 2018, @03:20AM (2 children)
You know that the creditors can shut their purse up. Sure, go ahead, print worthless paper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Touché) by deimtee on Saturday March 03 2018, @04:56AM (1 child)
Somebody* should tell Trump that while they sold the right to print money to the private bankers who own the Federal Reserve, he still retains the power to mint coin and that there is no limit on the face value of coins. He can mint a hundred coins with a face value of a trillion dollars each and pay off the debt if he wants.
(*'somebody' here means an anarchist who wants to watch as the world burns, set to the music of screaming economists.)
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:37PM
Well.. I can imagine Trump agrees with the first half of your proposal, at least... is that good enough?
I had this picture in my mind: Trump goes swimming [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 03 2018, @02:52AM
is to protect against unfair trade practices, such as dumping.
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/20/china-steel-overcapacity-war.html [cnbc.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RamiK on Saturday March 03 2018, @04:55AM (1 child)
Canada (and China) do subsidize their heavy industries compared to the US since they offer social programs. If all the low-income workers don't need to over-pay for medical insurance, utilities and housing since the money is coming off taxes from other industries and - Cthulhu forbids - the rich, then that's a significant subsidy for an entire (lower) class of industries and people. That is, not just steel, but every low-paying production job aiming at exports outside the States is handicapped by the lack of a national health insurance, affordable housing programs, regulated / nationalized utilities and so on...
As for the tariffs, then as it is now: Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act [wikipedia.org].
compiling...
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 04 2018, @04:43AM
On the other hand, the US subsidizes its industries and workers with low taxes and a dollar kept high through various means such as pegging the world price of oil to the US$. Then there's things like the subsidized gasoline, a CDN$1.40 a litre (close to $4US a US gallon) locally here. Not to mention housing, groceries and most other stuff that America subsides through borrowing a trillion+ a year. When our government borrows US$100,000,000,000 a year instead of CDN$18,000,000,000 (multiply by 70% to convert) to subsidize our people and industries we can talk about unfair subsidies.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @10:08AM
This has less to do with metal trade policy than putting a shot across China's bow in general.
Sailing aircraft carriers around Asian waters and bloviating at the UN will never deter or coerce the mercantillist behemoth that is China.
The one and only threat to China is internal social unrest. Upsetting their shaky economic apple cart is sound strategy.
Xi is putting Machiavelli and Colbert to shame right now. Unimpeded, this will not change.
Oh, and Russia? We need them. Not as a manufactured public threat or political whipping boy, but as a powerful regional counterpoise. The Russians, for all their public talk of "partnerships" with Beijing, are watching their own backs. Moscow always hedges it's bets, and Putin is nobody's fool, least of all Washington's or Beijing's.
Trump's team, in this particular case, may be smarter than they look.