transporter
Well-Known Member
How Are Those Steel Tariffs Working?
Than goodness "trade wars are so easy to win". Maybe we'd be making more progress if the President would actually be President instead of play acting and spending all his time tweeting, pissing and moaning. Maybe he could actually sit thru a briefing....maybe he could learn something...maybe he could see the damage he is doing. Yeah...I know...too much to ask of this man. He ran to win...he didn't run to actually do the job.
• Trade deficit. “We need and we will get lower trade deficits, and we will stop exporting jobs and start exporting more products instead,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said last March after the President announced his steel tariffs. We disagree with the President’s preoccupation with trade deficits, which are affected more by capital flows and currency values than trade policy.
But it’s worth pointing out that the trade deficit in steel increased last year by $1 billion as exports (measured in dollars) fell 7% and imports rose 1%. Imports ton for ton fell more than exports did. But the average price of steel per ton increased more for imports than exports, perhaps due to shifts in currency values and product deliveries—e.g., businesses importing more expensive specialized steel grades.
• Jobs.
While domestic steel production rose 5% last year, the tariffs had little impact on employment in the industry. Steel makers added 2,200 jobs in 2017, but just 200 in the last year. One reason is that steel makers ramped up production at highly-efficient minimills with electric-arc furnaces that employ few workers.
• Negotiating leverage.
The Trump Administration argued that it was using steel tariffs as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Mexico and Canada for a revised Nafta. “The president’s view was that it makes sense that if we get a successful agreement, to have them be excluded,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said last March. “It’s an incentive to get a deal.”
Mexico and Canada signed a revised North American trade pact last year, but the U.S. still hasn’t exempted the two countries from steel tariffs. The retaliatory tariffs by Mexico and Canada therefore remain in effect and are hurting American farmers and manufacturers. Tariffs lose their credibility as leverage for trade deals if negotiating partners assume they won’t go away after a deal is struck.
Than goodness "trade wars are so easy to win". Maybe we'd be making more progress if the President would actually be President instead of play acting and spending all his time tweeting, pissing and moaning. Maybe he could actually sit thru a briefing....maybe he could learn something...maybe he could see the damage he is doing. Yeah...I know...too much to ask of this man. He ran to win...he didn't run to actually do the job.