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Trump plans a tariff on steel and aluminum. I read in other forum, this will make goods cost more for americans. But at the same time, our own steel industry makes more money.
So how do you decide if this bad idea, or good idea? Many other countries like India, and China have no concern for environment or labor. Should we even do business with them? Yeh, they cheap, but if we find it unacceptable to adopt their practices what is the point when we buy from them?
Now I hear we import mostly from Canada. What if we just tariff places like India and China only? They have terrible labor practices and environmental regulations.
Trump plans a tariff on steel and aluminum. I read in other forum, this will make goods cost more for americans. But at the same time, our own steel industry makes more money.
So how do you decide if this bad idea, or good idea? Many other countries like India, and China have no concern for environment or labor. Should we even do business with them? Yeh, they cheap, but if we find it unacceptable to adopt their practices what is the point when we buy from them?
Now I hear we import mostly from Canada. What if we just tariff places like India and China only? They have terrible labor practices and environmental regulations.
A trade war is the last thing the US needs after running up its deficit spending. One that causes commodity inflation is even worse, especially since the US doesn't produce enough of these products to make the transition easy for those down the channel. Also, there will be counter tariffs and China is an important market for higher margin products like cars for instance. It is easy to mouth toughness that looks good for America but it's quite another thing to do something that hurts the free market and helps our already advanced economy.
The best way to help the steel and aluminum industry is to help them advance to use more robotics and automation which won't do so much for employment.
Because Trump is using a "national security " provision to get this passed.......The result is that it will apply to ALL of the countries around the world. He cannot limit it to one or two countries.
Canada sells more steel and aluminium to the USA than ANY other country, by a huge margin. Canada also BUYS more of those metals than any other country in the world. For just one example...the US automobile makers employ about 2 million US workers. The integration of the USA /Canada auto making industry will suffer a huge hit, if this stupid trade idea is implemented.
Trump, once again, is doing something that "looks good " but has a huge negative result.
A US trade war is the last thing that should be thought about. It will rebound against your country.
this will make goods cost more for americans. But at the same time, our own steel industry makes more money.
Good for the few, bad for the many. I can't figure out why anyone not directly benefiting from the steel industry thinks this is a good thing. There's a reason children shouldn't play with matches.
I read this morning that the last time tariffs were imposed on imported steel in 2002, the direct effect was the loss of 200,000 US Manufacturing jobs which relied upon the availability of affordable steel.
Copied from Wikipedia:
Impact According to a 2005 review of existing research, all studies on the tariffs "find that the costs of the Safeguard Measures outweighed their benefits in terms of aggregate GDP and employment as well as having an important redistributive impact."[1]
Steel production rose slightly during the period of the tariff. [6] The protection of the steel industry in the United States may have had unintended consequences and perverse effects. A study from 2003 that was paid for by CITAC, a trade association of businesses that use raw materials, found that around 200,000 jobs were lost as a result.[7][8]
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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The biggest effect that most will experience is the higher cost of cars and trucks, but also RVs, boats, airplanes and new highrise buildings. There will also be a shortage, so many layoffs in these and related industries since the few U.S. manufacturers left won't be able to produce enough.
Trump plans a tariff on steel and aluminum. I read in other forum, this will make goods cost more for americans. But at the same time, our own steel industry makes more money.
So how do you decide if this bad idea, or good idea? Many other countries like India, and China have no concern for environment or labor. Should we even do business with them? Yeh, they cheap, but if we find it unacceptable to adopt their practices what is the point when we buy from them?
Now I hear we import mostly from Canada. What if we just tariff places like India and China only? They have terrible labor practices and environmental regulations.
So how do you decide? It's a moral issue. This is a direct attack on freedom, a free economy, individual rights, and our way of life. It is anti-reason, anti-freedom, and anti-American. The government has no business picking winners and losers in private industries.
Most people will default to a bankrupt philosophy known as utilitarianism. They will look for good and bad "effects" on the economy, and will attempt to predict how trading partners will react. Ignoring the elephant in the room. The government just price-fixed the private economy and engaged in a form of tyranny that will affect the price of everything we buy. Why? Because the government is attempting to patch holes in a damn that they are destroying from the inside.
Government regulation, taxation, and overreach have made our steel industry non-competitive with foreign steel makers. Our steel industry cannot compete because of obstacles put into place by our own government and regulators. So now that government action has effed our own industry, and it cannot compete, what do we do to solve it? MORE EFFING GOVERNMENT, what else?
But this is the aftermath and the footnotes and the postscript. The essential issue that controls this decision is moral. The government should have no right to interfere in the private economy. If Trump wants to really help American industry, he should do more of what he did with tax reform. Lower taxes, less regulations, NO regulations. Get the hell out of our effing way!
Tariffs help developing, bourgeoning sectors. Not mature ones. It makes sense for India or Brazil to have some tariffs on manufacturing. It makes little sense for the U.S. or Western Europe to have them.
You only want tariffs for industries that are small and trying to establish themselves.
For most of us, it'll mean higher prices for cars. It won't result in more industrial jobs. At worst, only about 15% of manufacturing jobs have been lost to "trade deals," and that's a generous accounting. The vast majority of manufacturing jobs have been lost to technological innovation.
What's bad and ugly is triggering high inflation, and nothing good will come out of it since Rust Belt steel mills and auto assemblies lost capacities and will not be revived by higher prices.
Retaliations by China and EU will not be pretty either.
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