Posted on 03/02/2018 3:30:13 PM PST by EyesOfTX
The Evening Campaign Update (Because The Campaign Never Ends)
So, President Donald Trump spent all day Friday getting hammered by the fake news media, Democrats and many Republicans in congress, and leaders of other countries all over the world for his announcement Thursday afternoon that he plans to implement tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum next week.
If that reaction mix sounds familiar to you, it should. It’s exactly the same reaction from a very similar mix of players he received last summer when he announced he was pulling the United States from the Paris Climate Accords. Coincidence? Not really, no.
Think about it: What did President Trump say when he cancelled Barack Obama’s probably-illegal executive agreement that committed an entire country of 330 million people to the Paris Accords with no review or vote from congress? He identified the Paris construct as nothing more than a wealth redistribution scheme that would suck trillions of dollars out of the U.S. economy and redistribute that wealth among the other nations who were signatories to the agreement.
In saying that, the President was 100% correct. The Paris Accords have literally nothing to do with “saving the climate” by convincing countries to reduce their air emissions. If it did, then why have none of the other nations who remain in the Accords met their emissions commitments under the deal? That should give you a clue.
President Trump looks at the import/export equation on steel and aluminum in exactly the same terms. He sees a situation in which a country like China gets to export its steel into the U.S. while paying no tariff at all, while at the same time levying a 50% tariff on U.S. steel coming into China, and sees that as just another scheme to redistribute U.S. wealth and jobs to another nation. It’s the same concept.
The hilarious part of all of this is that so many members of congress and in the news media were shocked at the President’s Thursday announcement, just as almost all of the same people were shocked last summer about the President’s Paris decision. Good lord, he promised on at least 100 occasions during the 2016 campaign to place tariffs on imports of all manner of goods, including steel and aluminum, if he were to win the election.
Since becoming President, Mr. Trump has been laser-focused on keeping the myriad promises he made during that campaign. As many have detailed, he as already, just 14 months into his term in office, kept the great majority of those promises. So why is anyone surprised in any way, shape or form that he is now going about to keeping his promise to America’s steel and aluminum industries? It would have actually been a real surprise had he not chosen to do so at some point soon.
I personally have mixed feelings on the tariff issue, and am not endorsing these tariffs just as I do not endorse the President’s recent implementation of tariffs on imports of solar panels. But to Mr. Trump’s credit, he was completely open and honest about his plans to implement such tariffs during the campaign, and it is also to his personal credit that he remains committed to keeping his promises, whether I or anyone else agrees with him on the issue or not.
So, tariffs and Paris – there’s your analogy. It even sort of rhymes.
That is all.
Follow me on Twitter at @GDBlackmon
Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever. Whatfinger.com is my go-to source for keeping up with all the latest events in real time.
Apples and oranges?
From Two years ago:
Link to article not behind paywall
http://www.aei.org/publication/imposing-266-tariffs-on-chinese-steel-imports-will-punish-us-manufacturers-and-consumers-not-china/
https://twitter.com/TheLastRefuge2/status/969524448209620992
TheLastRefuge
“That’s funny (and hypocritical), the EU didn’t seem concerned with American opinion when they applied their own tariffs on Chinese Steel and Aluminum last year. “
This tarriff crap with Steel and Aluminium is BOGUS. Look at the numbers. US made Steel controls 70% of the US market.They have to have it all? China is 11th on the import steel list in terms of quantity. US made steel has made huge profits starting in 2016 with the auto sale boom in the USA.
The down side is that these tariffs will cost thousands of jobs at Anhauser Bush and in US steel manufacturing. For every single steel worker in the US, there are 45 US jobs dependent on that steel. You upset that ratio cart on the narrow 30% import market, and it will cost the USA thousands of manufacturing jobs.
Marl Levin covers these facts with a great deal of accuracy.
Meanwhile Mexico and China are reducing import tariffs so that they will get the benefit of trade from nations such as Canada, who will no longer trade with the USA because of US protectionism.We lose international competitiveness and access to foreign markets.The result will be that countries like Australia and canada will trade with China and Mexico, and diminish their US trade.
WE DO NOT NEED THESE TARIFFS.
See here:
” ‘Mr. President, you’re not protecting anyone!’ – Mark Levin explains why Trump is WRONG on Trade and tariffs”
Is this another side of the same coin?
http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/3636914/posts?page=13#13
So if the price of the steel in a car went up the whole 25%, which it won’t, and the price of aluminum went up the entire 10%, the cost would go up by about $240, or less than five tenths of a percent. The cost of a truck would go up around $340. According to Edmunds, the average car loan today is six and a half years. or 78 months, so the average payment would be up around $3 per month.
Well the traiff policy can be explained and minimized in the way you point out but the reasoning for increased steel and aluminum tariffs is not supported by facts.
China is at 11th position for imports of steel into the USA. US steel producers already control 70% of the US market.
So this is about politics, its not about economy. But where are the politics going? No one seems to know at this point.
Maybe its about putting pressure on China to participate more fully in the upcoming likely blockade of North Korea?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.