Europe to retaliate against jeans, bourbon, motorcycles

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
Europe is said to be targeting $3.5 billion worth of U.S. goods with tariffs.

European officials were expected to hit items like Harley Davidson Motorcycles and Kentucky bourbon in an effort to pressure Republican congressional leaders to get Trump to back away from his steel tariff plan. Harley Davidson is based on Wisconsin, the home state of House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Kentucky bourbon hits Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell righ



Europe to retaliate against US steel tariffs by hitting US jeans, bourbon, motorcycles: Report
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
Guess the Europeans will just have to make their own bourbon, Harleys, and Levis.

Maybe it's me who misses the point of the steel tariff? I thought the idea was to revitalize US industries and put people back to work here? We used to have a thriving steel industry in this country, what happened to it? That's a real question because I don't know. I'm guessing that it was cheaper to have little kids work the steel mills in China or wherever? The unions ####ed it up with their greed and power mongering?

"They" say we can't afford to produce our own steel, and yet we used to be able to afford it just fine. Hell, Billy Joel wrote a whole song about it.
 

Starman

New Member
Guess the Europeans will just have to make their own bourbon, Harleys, and Levis.

Maybe it's me who misses the point of the steel tariff? I thought the idea was to revitalize US industries and put people back to work here? We used to have a thriving steel industry in this country, what happened to it? That's a real question because I don't know. I'm guessing that it was cheaper to have little kids work the steel mills in China or wherever? The unions ####ed it up with their greed and power mongering?

The majority of our steel imports come from Canada not China.

Anyway, this is great news! The orange buffoon wants a trade war, he’ll have one.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
The majority of our steel imports come from Canada not China.

Anyway, this is great news! The orange buffoon wants a trade war, he’ll have one.

You understand that steel vs. jeans, booze, and motorcycles isn't much of a "war", right?
 

transporter

Well-Known Member
I'll ignore GURPS posting of last weeks news and address that actual intelligent questions below
Guess the Europeans will just have to make their own bourbon, Harleys, and Levis.

No, that is not how tariffs work...tariffs raise prices on imports they don't ban imports.


Maybe it's me who misses the point of the steel tariff?
You are not alone here. Actually everyone misses the point of the steel and aluminum tariffs. Everyone includes; every economist, every one of Trumps economic advisors, every member of the Republican leadership...the only person in the world who is current FOR tariffs is our incompetent President.


I thought the idea was to revitalize US industries and put people back to work here?
That is the concept being pushed, but like every other proposal from Mr. Trump the reality is quite different. Let's say steel production were to come back to the US...unlikely, but suppose it does...manufacturing plants don't need workers like they did 40 years ago. New plants are automated...fewer workers who generally need higher skills to operate the machinery.

We used to have a thriving steel industry in this country, what happened to it? That's a real question because I don't know. I'm guessing that it was cheaper to have little kids work the steel mills in China or wherever? The unions ####ed it up with their greed and power mongering?

Our steel industry was screwed by unions AND by management. Unions demanded wages and benefits of such a level that they priced themselves right out of existence. Management didn't upgrade or modernize factories and plants. High labor costs combined with outdated manufacturing facilities doomed the industry. Now all we have left are mini mills that produce much smaller quantities with far fewer workers.


"They" say we can't afford to produce our own steel, and yet we used to be able to afford it just fine. Hell, Billy Joel wrote a whole song about it.

Not sure who "they" are...we can produce steel here...we just can't produce it on a large enough scale at a competitive price. In the heyday of steel production in the world, we were the only country with standing modern steel plants. It took a long time for Europe to rebuild after WWII. We (unions, workers, management, politicians) got drunk and fat off the lack of competition...once the rest of the world caught up, our steel industry began a slow death spiral. It is a story with a great beginning and middle but with a lousy ending that didn't have to be...

Worse yet, we are repeating the story now with our infrastructure. Our roads and bridges are terrible. Our rail service is congested and too slow. Our air transportation system is woefully out of date. Yet we are doing nothing to fix any of it. Here again the incompetence of our President is on full display for the world to see and take advantage of. China is embarking on its Belt and Silk Road project that will open massive lanes of trade all over Asia and Europe. We are pulling out of trade deals and won't replace antiquated infrastructure. The world is getting more competitive and we are falling behind.
 

MiddleGround

Well-Known Member
Worse yet, we are repeating the story now with our infrastructure. Our roads and bridges are terrible. Our rail service is congested and too slow. Our air transportation system is woefully out of date. Yet we are doing nothing to fix any of it. Here again the incompetence of our President is on full display for the world to see and take advantage of. China is embarking on its Belt and Silk Road project that will open massive lanes of trade all over Asia and Europe. We are pulling out of trade deals and won't replace antiquated infrastructure. The world is getting more competitive and we are falling behind.

WOW!! I never knew all of these things fell apart so quickly after the last Presidential election! It went from perfection to shambles literally overnight huh? :rolleyes:
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
Nobody wanting coke (not the beverage) production near them is what killed the steel industry in the US.

AND something I didn't see on this thread, and one of the focuses of the tariffs.

Predatory pricing. Dumping.
Dropping under-priced steel in the United States for the sole purpose of killing its industry and market share.
Tariffs are one way of combating that.
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
No, that is not how tariffs work...tariffs raise prices on imports they don't ban imports.

It IS however, how they *effectively* work if tariffs are too high - the imports aren't purchased at ALL.
People in those nations must either produce it themselves or go with alternatives.
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
WOW!! I never knew all of these things fell apart so quickly after the last Presidential election! It went from perfection to shambles literally overnight huh? :rolleyes:

Amazing, isn't it? They all function perfectly for decades but collapse suddenly.
And that is even on TOP of the billions Trump's predecessor promised to invest in it.

:rolleyes:

Infrastructure is one of the last things anyone ever drops money on, and one of the first things people PROMISE to spend money on,
just as companies - and government agencies - promise to spend money on training and education.
 

Starman

New Member
It IS however, how they *effectively* work if tariffs are too high - the imports aren't purchased at ALL.
People in those nations must either produce it themselves or go with alternatives.

In theory.

But rarely works out that way. If these nations could start manufacturing these sorts of things themselves, they'd be doing it already. Europeans love our stuff and readily buy it up. There is an aspirational dynamic at play here that drives consumption of American-made stuff. When I travel to London, for example, I generally see as many Harleys there as I do here. Extremely popular in Germany and Denmark too. I had my first taste of Pappy Van Winkle 23 year old bourbon in Copenhagen, for example. The demand isn't going away just because of tariffs.
 
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