Trump says he will impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports 'next week'

[Applewood]

While arguing that the United States has been treated "horribly treated by other countries," Trump also told the executives that "you'll have to regrow your industries, that's all I'm asking."

No complaints from me.
He's absolutely right.

And his being right just shaved about a thousand dollars off my retirement nest egg.  Thanks, Trump.

[RoosGirl]

Oh yeah... it was crap. It got to where we would rather salvage and clean it up than buy new. Try to cut a decent line on that jap junk... It would turn out jagged enough to have to grind... Full of slag holes and blowouts. I actually found more than one embedded ball bearings.

My FIL used to be the equipment manager for a golf course in Naples.  I guess he would have salesmen show up trying to get them to buy this or that new brand of Japanese or Chinese tools.  He'd rig up a bolt in a vise and use the salesmen's tools to see which would snap first; the bolt head or the import wrench.  And then do the same experiment with a US steel wrench.  He knew that cheap junk would end up stripping out and basically breaking while the US steel wrench would break the bolt head off.

[roamer_1]

He knew that cheap junk would end up stripping out and basically breaking while the US steel wrench would break the bolt head off.

That's right. And I've got more thirty-year old  Snap-Ons out in the shed than you can probably believe, to prove it... And all my old man's too - A lot of those are older than me. Still pristene.

[massadvj]

 The forces of Globalization and technology are bigger than any government, and any president, including Trump.  For the past 40 years the USA has been the world's biggest beneficiary of technology and globalization largely because we had free trade and open markets.  Now Trump is shooting himself and us in the foot.

Raising steel prices on General Motors, Boeing, General Electric, Ruger, Harley Davidson and every other American manufacturer that uses the commodity is not going to help the American worker.

On another thread someone said it will amount to only $300 per every new car.  But that means our cars become $300 more expensive to the Europeans and Asians while Hyundai, Kia, Toyota and Mercedes get no price increase to those markets.  Thus, we sell fewer air conditioners, appliances, motorcycles and automobiles overseas while they sell less steel to us. 

Fair trade indeed.

[corbe]

   A little History of the last time this was tried.


Protectionism

The battle of Smoot-Hawley

A cautionary tale about how a protectionist measure opposed by all right-thinking people was passed

Dec 18th 2008

EVEN when desperate, Wall Street bankers are not given to grovelling. But in June 1930 Thomas Lamont, a partner at J.P. Morgan, came close. “I almost went down on my knees to beg Herbert Hoover to veto the asinine Hawley-Smoot Tariff,” he recalled. “That Act intensified nationalism all over the world.”

According to David Kennedy, an historian, Lamont was “usually an influential economic adviser” to the American president. Not this time. Hoover signed the bill on June 17th: “the tragic-comic finale”, said that week's Economist, “to one of the most amazing chapters in world tariff history…one that Protectionist enthusiasts the world over would do well to study.”

The Tariff Act of 1930, which increased nearly 900 American import duties, was debated, passed and signed as the world was tumbling into the Depression. Its sponsors—Willis Hawley, a congressman from Oregon, and Reed Smoot, a senator from Utah—have come to personify the economic isolationism of the era. Sixty-three years later, in a television debate on the North American Free-Trade Agreement, Al Gore, then vice-president, even presented his unamused anti-NAFTA opponent, Ross Perot, with a framed photograph of the pair. Now, with the world economy in perhaps its worst pickle since the Depression, the names of Hawley and Smoot are cropping up again.

<..snip..>

https://www.economist.com/node/12798595

[corbe]

"Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister:“It is entirely inappropriate to view any trade with Canada as a national security threat... Should restrictions be imposed on Canadian steel and aluminum products, Canada will take responsive measures to defend its trade interests and workers.”"

[Suppressed]

Metal stuff will be more expensive, so I'll just buy more cheap Chinese throwaway plastic crap instead of American.

[edpc]

A little History of the last time this was tried.

The Tariff Act of 1930, which increased nearly 900 American import duties, was debated, passed and signed as the world was tumbling into the Depression.

! No longer available

[massadvj]

Metal stuff will be more expensive, so I'll just buy more cheap Chinese throwaway plastic crap instead of American.

Metal stuff made overseas will be cheaper than metal stuff made here, so you can still buy Chinese metal stuff and just stop buying American.  American companies that use a lot of metal will be encouraged to move their plants overseas to compete.  All so we can protect the "American worker."

[kevindavis007]

It seems that Trump is taking advice from this loser:

"Certain industries cannot compete with foreign producers because of lower foreign wages and cost of living abroad...we pledge [tariffs] so American labor may command the home market, maintain its standard of living and count upon steady employment." --Herbert Hoover, 1930

[Suppressed]

Metal stuff made overseas will be cheaper than metal stuff made here, so you can still buy Chinese metal stuff and just stop buying American.  American companies that use a lot of metal will be encouraged to move their plants overseas to compete.  All so we can protect the "American worker."

True, it will be cheaper than US stuff, but it will still be artificially pricier than market.

Trump just stabbed US workers and consumers in the back.

[goatprairie]

The evidence from the steel tariff imposed by the last Bush admin is pretty recent history. It was a disaster. And the Bush admin quickly rescinded it after a year or so. You'd think Trump would do a little digging into the past. 

[edpc]

The evidence from the steel tariff imposed by the last Bush admin is pretty recent history. It was a disaster. And the Bush admin quickly rescinded it after a year or so. You'd think Trump would do a little digging into the past.

Well, he's got one thing on his mind when it comes to trade and this won't affect them that much, since they're not our biggest metal importer.


! No longer available