Stable Genius Once Again Picking Winners and Losers

Trump is correct on this one.

 

That's good. I hate Chinese steel.

 

How about the truth? They already have tariffs on our products.
You are missing it. Trump sees a looming military showdown. He is trying to gear our domestic manufacturing back to the point we would need to domestically sustain ourselves during wartime. My theory anyway.

 

We need to gear up our entire industry. From mining all the way to finished product. We have plenty of raw material in the ground.

 

"But the bottom line is that once Trump opens Pandora’s Box by rationalizing protectionism as a national security imperative, the durability of the rules based trading system will be tested like never before, with global economic security hanging in the balance."

Trump’s Steel and Aluminum Tariffs Will Open Pandora’s Box

 

I am an isolationalist so open it up.

 

Amen. Why do people act as if talking care of Americans and placing us first is a bad thing? They dump products on us at a loss with almost no cost that drives our companies out of business. Then when we have no capabilities anymore they ramp prices up.

 

“The result was disaster. In 1929, the U.S. exported $5.24 billion worth of goods. In 1933, exports were a mere $1.68 billion. If inflation is factored in, that was less than what the country had exported in 1896. World trade declined by two-thirds between 1929 and 1934, as country after country raised tariffs. The stock market, which had recovered about a third of what it had lost in the crash of 1929, began to sink again as soon as it became clear that Smoot-Hawley would pass. Bank failures began to multiply.

Thus, Smoot-Hawley was one of the prime reasons that a stock market crash and an ordinary recession turned into the calamity of the Great Depression.”

Smoot-Hawley Tariff: A Bad Law, Badly Timed

 

That was a only a very small part of it. He said he was going to do this, and it needs to be done. What you guys are saying it's ok for everyone to charge Americans high tariffs, but we can't charge them...that's bad.

 

We may have to learn the lessons of the 1930s all over again if wiser heads do not prevail.

 

Decline? Really? Technically yes, but in reality that was not much.

 

Our largest source of imported steel is Canada. China is not even in the top 10.

 

“Canada and Brazil are likely to bear the brunt of any tariffs on steel imposed by President Donald Trump, according to a 2017 report from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

According to the department's International Trade Administration and IHS Global Trade, Canadian and Brazilian steel comprised 16 percent and 13 percent of U.S. steel imports as of September 2017. China, frequently criticized politically for dumping cheap steel on trade partners, is not one of the top 10 importers of steel to the U.S. ...

Top foreign sources of aluminum included Canada (56 percent), Russia (8 percent) and the United Arab Emirates (7 percent) between 2013 and 2016, according to the United States Geological Survey.”

Canada, Brazil — but not China — will be hit hardest by Trump's steel tariffs

 

Manufactured steel and Aluminum is a product. Ore is a commodity. Steel and AL in ingot form might be a commodity, but as an I beam etc it is a product.

 

The only steel I can even buy for my welding shop is Chinese. Its all the there suppliers that service this area have.