Posted on 03/09/2018 11:09:13 AM PST by Oklahoma
Last week, President Trump's announced sweeping tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the United States: 25 percent on American buyers of imported steel-mill products and 10 percent on American buyers of imported aluminum-mill products. Trump has favored strong tariffs for years, and some of his most prominent economic advisors are supplying him with arguments in service of his policy.
Those arguments are all wrong. Here are the facts about some of the favorite arguments made by protectionists. For the sake of simplification, I will mostly focus on the steel tariffs.
Argument 1: Trump's tariffs are necessary because our domestic industry has been decimated.
Last Thursday, the president said we needed tariffs because "they've destroyed the steel industry." The next morning, Trump tweeted, "We must protect our country and our workers. Our steel industry is in bad shape. IF YOU DON'T HAVE STEEL, YOU DON'T HAVE A COUNTRY!"
Steel is indeed an important metal. As David Burritt, one of steel moguls attending the White House meeting wrote in The Wall Street Journal a week ago, "Steel touches every American life in some way every day. Infrastructure, building construction, appliances, vehicles, energy pipelines and more require steel." As we will see later, that's an argument against tariffs, not for them.
But everything else the president said is nonsense. The choice isn't between producing 100 percent of our steel (and having a country) or producing no steel (and presumably losing our country). We also have the option to import steel with zero threat to our country.
The domestic steel industry is not vanishing—far from it. 70 percent of the steel bought for use in the United States is produced here in the USA. Also, American steel production hasn't changed much over the past decades. In fact, since 2010 it's actually increased.
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
The tariffs may never be collected and if so not for long.They are a useful negotiation tool.
Is’t that the rag with the sixty year old guy in a leather jacket spokesman?
Thanks for posting. Of course you hurt U.S. manufacturing by raising the price of a key raw material, steel. Many Freepers, instead of making a rational argument, will just sputter that you are a “free traitor”.
For anyone in Europe who wants to bitch about U.S. steel tariffs: http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/29/news/economy/steel-china-europe-dumping-tariffs/index.html
The one good reason outweighs the bad, as far as I can see: It will start a debate on what is fair and unfair in trade.
Trumps steel tariffs are bad but Obama’s were apparently perfectly okay. Or, at any rate, I do not remember hearing so many people wailing about them.
Good article posted here, and probably the best comment from Theodore on any of these threads.
It’s interesting that Democrats have convinced Republicans to follow their lead on tariffs. Tariffs are a tax.
I thought Obama’s tariffs were stupid. Apparently Obama was just one of the first , “new Republicans.” He paved the way.
Get into a WAR then try and import the Steel you need.....
“Free Trade” is why the Republicans don’t win the Rust Belt and in turn the Presidency. Tell me another Republican who would have one the Rust Belt in 2016?
Yes. And it was the primary source of income for the federal government before the implementation of that piece of crap 16th Amendment.
“The domestic steel industry is not vanishing—far from it. 70 percent of the steel bought for use in the United States is produced here in the USA. Also, American steel production hasn’t changed much over the past decades. In fact, since 2010 it’s actually increased.”
Yeah, so why are so many steel mills here gone?
Nobody’s going to bother to give a detailed reply in respose to a one-factor, your-concerns-are-immaterial analysis.
The neocon globalists hate tariffs with a passion, they need to bring in stuff from their outsourced polluting and slave labor factories duty free.
This is why they don’t care that others have tariffs against us.
They flip the finger to Reagan who used them very effectively, and to the founders who financed the entire nation with them till the civil war. Weird to see the GOP closely aligned with the thinking of Woodrow Wilson.
The bottom line, as a continent sized nation, the USA could exist alone as a very successful economy. Trade should only enhance our well-being, but not be used to destroy industries and the entire middle class.
Thanks for posting. Of course you hurt U.S. manufacturing by raising the price of a key raw material, steel. Many Freepers, instead of making a rational argument, will just sputter that you are a “free traitor”.
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Tariffs economically benefit some at the expense of others. The main rationale is that those whose jobs ARE protected have an income that benefits them MORE than those who have negligible or modest increases to their cost of living. Now, low income families suffer more from higher-priced goods, but that is why there are other collectivist policies (welfare policies) to offset this. Ultimately one must ask: Does the privilege of U.S. citizenship grant at least some economic protection over the economic well-being of foreigners? Those who support tariffs answer “yes”.
Here’s the key...steel and alumininum must be mfg in the US. Having key strategic components controlled even by our allies is a huge mistake
Am I the only one, aside from President Trump, that sees the necessity of domestic production of steel and aluminum?
China sells us steel. China takes Taiwan. Any reaction by the US is met with an embargo of steel and aluminum.
This is about more than trade.
A couple arguments/considerations:
Name any two countries who have ever had “Free Trade.”
If tariffs are bad and he lowest cost goods from abroad is good, then can’t government most help the US by subsidizing or mandating the purchase of only the lowest cost goods from abroad?
Penalizing reportable income is a far worse sin than penalizing foreign goods.
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