Actually, the subject of the article deals extensively in what the response by the US should be, and at no time is it "tariff all steel!"
Impact[edit] 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. [7] 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.[8][9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_United_States_steel_tariff No, it's not false. I've seen different reports all saying 200K jobs were lost as a result.
At the end of the day, it's sad when companies don't support their own country by importing the junk from China and people don't support their own country by buying the China junk off those companies. Buy quality, buy once. The junk from China doesn't last, same with clothes from Vietnam and Bangladesh.
Listen to you talking about partisan hackery. From a party of killing unions, to tRUMP wanting to protect 1 union, and all of a sudden you're a union supporter. Fake.
Somehow you think there's only $1000 of steel and aluminum in a car? 20% of 1000 is $200. You don't think the cost of a car will increase by the cost of steel/aluminum in the cars multiplied by about 20%?
All you RWers suddenly union friendly, should've been in Newt Gingrich's ear 25 yrs ago. Ronald Reagan's ear, 35 yrs ago. Bush I, 30 yrs ago. They were pushing for all these free trade agreements that sent our jobs overseas. Now, 30 yrs later, you finally are worried about the union working man. Spare us your fake concern.
Most cars contain around 2.4 - 3 tons of steel, steel coils sell for around $900 a ton, probably be a bit more expensive now due to US steel looking to take advantage of the tariffs, so let's say $1,000 per ton. This is rudimentary because auto industry probably gets bulk steel for cheaper, but if they pay $1,000 a ton it's about $600-750 per car. $200 is probably they WAY low end, but +$350-600 per car is probably about accurate.
Reuters, Nov. 24th 2015, Andy Home: Is the Curtain Coming Down on U.S. Aluminum Smelting? (AKA The Story the MSM Does Not Want You to Know About) "At the end of the last century [2000 A.D.] the United States was home to 22 aluminum smelters, all but one of them operating. By the end of this year there will be just eight, of which only four will be producing metal, two of them at reduced rates." https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...inum-smelting-andy-home-idUSKBN0TD1GX20151124 If you can see the sorry trend, Trump is damn sure your friend.
There is no guarantee that we'll open more aluminum smelting plants if not even keeping opn the remaining operating plants despite what trump maintains. Yoiu cannot trust what trump says; ie. Mexico paying for the wall; Carrier jobs remaining in the US; his pledge not to touch Medicare/Medicade and the list goes on and on. The only thing he can guarantee is if a deal benefits his companies, then it's a foregone conclusion that he'll get what he wants.
Worst possible example. The USA has huge reserves of coal and oil. Oranges are grown in Florida for the climate. Under your analysis, Oranges should be grown in heated greenhouses and shipped to Florida, rather than massive orange groves in semi-tropical Florida.
Most of them don't care and probably would cheer claiming this saves the climate - because they apparently believe China is on a different planet so what they do to the climate doesn't matter.
"And while the tariffs are expected to significantly boost the market share of domestic steel and aluminum manufacturers, they have sparked concerns over inflation. But a steel price increase, even one as drastic as the 25%, Rassouli said, still wouldn't cause huge price increases across the economy. That's because steel and metal prices only make up a small portion of the price in things like cars and houses. When automakers or homebuilders produce their goods, the cost of buying the metal is relatively low, compared to the total cost of putting the good together. "If steel goes up 20%,"Rassouli said, the price of a car "might go up immaterially." He gave the example that a car worth $30,000 would only increase $200 on a 20% steel price increase. Former Nucor CEO Dan DiMicco agrees. He told CNBC Thursday that a $1,000 per ton increase in the cost of steel would maybe raise a car's price $100 or $200 and that it's a "non-issue as far as the fear mongering that's going on." General Motors isn't concerned either. "We purchase over 90 percent of our steel for U.S. production from U.S. suppliers," the company said in a statement. "We need to better understand the details around the announcement today, but the bottom line is we support trade policies that enable U.S. manufacturers to win and grow jobs in the U.S., and at the same time succeed in global markets." http://markets.businessinsider.com/...nflation-as-everyone-thinks-2018-3-1017709471
maybe that can be incorporated into the left's second annual Scream At The Sky event this November. though I'm sure with 30 triggering events a month, they will have forgotten all about it by then.
Trump's tariffs prove the free market by itself doesn't work. (Inter alia, it destroyed Detroit, and engendered the first-world 'rust-belt'). The dissatisfaction of the losers in free trade is the reason why why establishment politics is on the nose with voters on the Left and Right, all around the world. But Trump has nothing to offer except a trade war with the world; the issue is much bigger than what Dems think of Trump. It's time to revisit Keynes' Bretton Woods proposals for a new global trading system.
I read only the last 3 pages. No one mentioned retaliation. Perhaps I missed it. EU has already said they were going to put big tariffs on Harley Davidson. Canada is pissed. We have yet to hear what China is going to do. Formally stated, Newton's third law is: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I don't think the reactions are going to be equal by any stretch of the imagination. Do all you Trumpsters really believe no one is going to react and somehow the Pennsylvania Steel Plants are going to be refurbished? Where are they going to get workers now that thousands of coal miners have gone back into to mines?
You've nailed it! Growing oranges in Maine or smelting steel in China only become economically viable by artificial means.
Trump's tariffs prove the free market by itself doesn't work. (Inter alia, it destroyed Detroit, and engendered the first-world 'rust-belt'). The dissatisfaction of the losers in free trade (see Joseph Walkers' comments in post #212: "When you start fighting back in a war there's no guarantee you will win but surrender is not an option and that's what we have been doing for decades now as other countries impose tariffs on our goods and we hemorrhage jobs like a cut artery spews blood. We can't keep doing what we've been doing or we will continue in this death spiral") - is the reason why establishment politics is on the nose with voters on the Left and Right, all around the world. But Trump has nothing to offer except a trade war with the world; the issue is much bigger than what Dems think of Trump. It's time to revisit Keynes' Bretton Woods proposals for a new global trading system.