Posted on 05/23/2016 12:25:08 PM PDT by FreedomNotSafety
"The U.S. Senate approved a bill May 12 that would overhaul the process for businesses requesting tariff suspensions and reductions."
"The miscellaneous tariff bill (MTB) establishes a new process for manufacturers to avoid having to pay tariffs on imported raw materials and intermediate products for which there are no suitable U.S.-based suppliers."
(Excerpt) Read more at plasticsnews.com ...
I don't want the government telling me where to buy from. And the article makes the point that tariffs can hurt domestic businesses too by raising their costs.
Strangely silent right now. Previous threads were swamped with support for taxing Americans on imported good.
You were extremely upset with Reagan then I suppose.
Saved Harley Davidson at the expense of everyone who wished to purchase something other than Harley Davidson. But that’s the point of most taxes on imports. To protect favored businesses at the expense of other business.
So Harley wasn’t worth a 35% premium over Jap bikes back then was it? So why didn’t all the Harley fans just voluntarily suck it up and pay 35% more and let the rest of America enjoy cheap Jap bikes.
Of course Harley used those profits wisely by investing in overseas parts suppliers. So its a great idea to force the purchase of Harley bikes but Harley should not be forced to buy American? http://nypost.com/2014/07/22/harley-shares-fall-after-admitting-foreign-parts-hold-up-new-bikes/
My point was his namesake did the very same thing.
Reagan was not perfect then neither was George Washington see The Whiskey Rebellion.
But it is a lesson worth remembering. Reagan did several things that cut conservatives to the core but he needed help, politically, in building the coalition to win the Cold War. And that was worth it.
If some protectionist measures sway the anti-trade democrats into the Trump camp then it will be worthwhile.
Trump is doing what he does best, negotiating. Often times the threat will bring adversaries to the table which is what you want. For far too long our trade agreements have benefited other countries while simultaneously hurting our country.
The fact that Harley Davidson has to buy some parts from foreign suppliers, while regrettable it is still far better than this country not producing motorcycles at all.
After 4 years Harley Davidson itself requested the tariff be suspended.
"We're profitable again. We're recapitalized. We're diversified. We don't need any more help," said Vaughn L. Beals, the Milwaukee-based company's chairman and chief executive, explaining the request to the United States International Trade Commission to terminate tariffs on large Japanese motorcycles.
While you think Reagan made a mistake, I believe he did the right thing.
But yes, no one is perfect. It still does not change the facts, and that the same thing people criticize Trump for ignore the fact that Reagan did the very same thing. It did not cause a war or even hurt America as the "Never Trump" crowd claim Trump doing the same will now cause. Instead it gave the company an opportunity to become competitive again.
“Instead it gave the company an opportunity to become competitive again.”
This is what “free traders” forget. If we allow foreign producers to destroy domestic industries via dumping in an effort to corner a market, those industries cannot come back quickly. You cannot compete if you no longer have a product to enter into said competition.
Personally, I don’t favor tariffs that simply dump money into the government black hole at the cost of American consumers. I favor something much more restrictive — ie, capping the total unit volume and dollar value of imports on any product to 15%-20% of the US market. I see no reason why we should allow foreign producers — operating under different laws, taxes, subsidies, and philosophies — to systematically kill off ANY American industry.
Every industry we have lost has only added millions more to the welfare rolls and trillions to our debt, not to mention all the social problems that result from perpetually underemployed working class men. Having “cheap stuff” on the shelves of Walmart has turned out to be way too expensive in other ways.
“I see no reason why we should allow foreign producers — operating under different laws, taxes, subsidies, and philosophies — to systematically kill off ANY American industry.”
So when Obamassiah and Hilliary finish killing coal in the US through EPA regs you believe that we should then protect our steelmakers from all the countries in the world that refuse to kill off coal? Or does importing 100% of the needed coke then become acceptable?
Do you really want the rest of the world to comply with the ever increasing US regulatory behemoth as a precondition to exporting products to our country?
tariffs imposed when foreign manufacturers dump products at less than their cost of production (which I support) and:
tariffs imposed because a foreign manufacturer's actual cast of production is less than that of over-taxed, over-regulated, unionized, Obamacare'd, American manufacturers. I completely oppose tariffs in that case - we should take the burden off the American manufacturer by cutting the taxes and regulations.
When foreign governments choose not to regulate and tax their manufacturers to death, that's not "dumping". It's economic good sense, which we would do well to follow before we start erecting tariff walls to protect the EPA, the UAW, OSHA, the EEOC, and Obamacare.
The Japanese were not dumping. Reagan did it solely to aid the American company Harley Davidson.
In that case, Reagan was 100% wrong.
Of course not. The EPA needs to be eliminated and locals limited to clean water and air; not wetlands, CO2, efficiency, CAFE, etc.
The coal industry should continue and even expand for metallurgical purposes even if nat gas makes it too expensive for power generation.
The only way to make our own industries fight against industry killing regulations and taxes is to require they produce their products HERE. They will never care about having a government that fosters industry as long as they can simply go elsewhere to produce but still sell here.
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